



Class .7^ Z 7 

Boo k 3 

G®TightN".^S£^ 


CjQPmiGIfiT DEPOSm 





SCOTT BURTON AND 
THE TIMBER THIEVES 




_ailPr wip M 

. f ‘'e'Ml : J'P 

>i v'^ ' 'i ' ' ^ , ,. V ' . • • j . V* • .^r. 

1 '' ' ■ ^ ■ . ^ /'I’lV/ <M^' 

>'..'f ><4 ,’' • ■ 'p ' ' '' ' ^ N 



• . > , / 


%.' ’*■ .r.Sr ri :.?* 

'.V.iVvV'v.;fv 

f’ ' », 

' V 

, . ■ ?, . 


/'X. 



"I, 


,vr,;i ^ :\ ^ ' ' : ■■ " ■ ^ 

i • ■ " ' 5 s»i&» t:?^ ■'• ■' : • ■ ^ ■ A- - ■«•• 


' *' I 


' •' *• i ' i > 

I . . ' *■ ». « 


»• '#■''• 
' 1 


t" I 


/^ ■■■, !";v\v-'’ A •■:' ,,'.V:, ■. 

«teP' ■ ; ' ’ : ^ ■ ': . ' rvv^: ^ 

^ -ii ."v^' 


, ■ .•■^■. ‘ - ,.-.'v'^ : A '' ..‘yny: 


'• 



■> 


\ . 


■> f 


* r '■ »» 




-U 

' i ')lf il'-' '‘Jvk'.' 


. \ 


i)A 



^ ' ‘W.;"'<'V- f a.. 

I* J '->yf 




' ;^ I*. V*^'. '' . • 

'1 ■ * 



i^, i r,'^ yiift 


IT ; *^ *, 1' ^ ’ • ' ,• 

Ir -«H:A&a>;v'--. 'f'.’Ui '' ; 

’*^'; - a. '.'"a, ; . ' ' 'a 

■>v.,..''. iVA' A :^vV'" ■'"’?•■’ ■' '*' 




<*i :'>i \; 


. ;' 



• I 


'.■ . ^ llV 

• ./.V |i|Arv 


if/1- ’^ v .'.Ai • '. v*;^. 'iv .- a .s — 


U v« 5 ^ . ' 





■‘f'U A .', . I » . . « "•//'<.' : i % . * 


r. >■ 


'* V JBIIH-:;-: ■ ' .- ■ ;> < 





k:, : 


• i 


\K'\- 


'*» . " >' ■*•* ' y- \'’l\ '.' t-' '.• ^ * . \'. 




U - 


■ 


A 1 IT 










ijrt\OA 





J-'* /> 'u\^, •' %v' 

? ■ if / ; '.‘i '* > * k ' A ‘ *•! 

' '■ "• Ml 


■ 7 : 










Is 












^ • f 


^ *«' 










f'w 




.. » f 




It 




1 




[i-‘ 








^p V 




nJ 


SSi 


'i«^r 




VfJ 




i ,» 








* /' 


f t. « 


> 


* f. 


V(' VV 




- 1 - 


\i. 


*r 


f 4 


v-^ 


’J5?‘ 




>1 j 


•M 


^ f * 


i J 


ft m 

^.>v‘ 


t. i 


'i :UI 




( 


I U 

ff 1,1 


H;-’ 




/.<*.' ■ Ife 

.■' r', ■ ' 








*«t 




^ ^}M. ft . ••,*-■ T-. '1 f 

* ■ ' ■ •' f- ' ‘ 'Vi 

f ■ f ‘ 








<3 


I* ■ ' i; 


■j" 






r •>» ;’!; * .,■ 

r m,- f 

■V /V f 


K' 




uk ^ 












^4 


»A 


iJW 




B^i 

x\ 0 






N V 




■«. 


:k.iw 


!* \ 




.^v V 




T» 


>« 






I -rti 








V 




4 • 




« 




-MT 




.■^.!. f 


'%■ 


I 


I « ■ 


t — » 










-J. 




V'i’ 







SCOTT BURTON AND 
THE TIMBER THIEVES 


BY 

E. G. CHEYNEY 

AUTHOR OF "SCOTT BURTON, FORESTER," 
"SCOTT BURTON ON THE RANGE,” ETC. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



PRIKTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


MAR -6 1922 

O)CI.A659032 

0 ^ 0 \ 


SCOTT BURTON AND 
THE TIMBER THIEVES 




SCOTT BURTON 
and the 

TIMBER THIEVES 

CHAPTER I 

S COTT BURTON sat on the porch of the 
little cabin on the edge of the forest and 
looked absently out across the wide beach 
at the restless waters of the Gulf of Mexico. No 
one ever would have guessed from his expression 
now how crazy he had been to see that gulf only 
the day before. He apparently did not see the 
water at all. The big waves boomed on the 
beach unheard and even the little oyster schooner, 
which glided across the picture on its way to port, 
failed to catch his attention. He had sat motion- 
less for so long that a great big fox-squirrel, 
afraid but drawn on irresistibly by his curiosity, 
had crept nervously up within a few feet of him. 

Suddenly Scott shook his head to rid himself 
of a bothersome fly and the frightened chatter of 
the squirrel as it whisked behind the nearest tree 
broke the spell. He gave the intruder a quick 
glance and turned his attention once more to the 


I 


SCOTT BURTON 


open letter which he held in his hand. He had 
read that letter dozens of times, in fact he knew 
every word on the typewritten page by heart, but 
he read it again now in the hope of finding some 
additional meaning between the lines. 

‘‘Washington, D. C. 

“September 3, 1913. 

“Mr. Scott Burton, 

“Okalatchee, Fla. 

'‘Dear Mr. Burton: 

“Your remarkable work in cleaning up the 
trouble with the sheepmen on the Cormorant 
Forest last summer has led us to select you for 
some special work of a rather delicate character 
on the Okalatchee. There have been some timber 
thieves at work on that forest for some time, and 
so far our officers have been unable to catch them 
or effectually put a stop to their work. It will be 
your particular duty to see that these thefts are 
stopped and the trespassers brought to justice. 

“In order that you may have ample authority, 
you have been appointed deputy supervisor under 
Mr. Graham and will be given every possible as- 
sistance. 

“You will report directly to this office. 

“Very truly yours, 

“Martin Spear, 
“Chief of Personnel.” 


2 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

No, he could not see any more in it, and yet it 
seemed mighty little to tell a man who had been 
looking forward to that letter for a week and had 
traveled two thousand miles to get it. He turned 
the paper over thoughtfully as though he hoped 
to find some further instructions on the back of 
it, and then proceeded to review once more the 
whole situation. 

He had been fortunate enough to earn consid- 
erable distinction in Arizona, where he had been 
working as a patrolman, by clearing out a gang 
of grafters who had been running sheep on the 
Forest without a permit. This achievement had 
won for him the chance of an appointment as a 
ranger, but he had asked for the opportunity to 
obtain a little more experience as a patrolman 
before taking up a more responsible position. 
His request had been granted and he had spent 
the summer very profitably on the district he had 
cleaned up so creditably in the spring. 

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he had 
received a telegram from the Washington office. 

‘‘Report Okalatchee, Fla., at once. You 

will find instructions there.” 

3 


SCOTT BURTON 

He had become attached to the Southwest and 
had looked forward contentedly to a permanent 
location there, but he was possessed of even more 
than the usual young man’s love of travel, and 
Florida had always been a country of his dreams, 
a country of fairy tales that he had hardly even 
dared hope to see. The sudden realization that 
he was actually going there had driven every- 
thing else from his mind, and an hour after he 
had received the message he was in the saddle 
on his way to town. 

It was only when he was on the train speeding 
across the vast expanse of Texas, with plenty of 
opportunity to think, that he had begun to burn 
with a consuming curiosity to know what his in- 
structions would be. The longer he had traveled 
the higher his air castles had grown and the more 
anxious he had become to see those instructions. 
By the time he had reached New Orleans he was 
in such a hurry that he could hardly enjoy his 
ten-hour wait there, though it was the first 
southern city he had ever been in and a place 
which he had always longed to see. 

The sight of the tall palmetto palms and the 
moss-covered live oaks drove his imagination to 
4 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

even more fantastic efforts, and finally arrived in 
Okalatchee he had almost run directly from the 
train to the postoffice to get those precious in- 
structions. And this letter was all that he had 
found. He had found that the supervisor’s head- 
quarters were five miles away through the pine 
woods and the telephone gave him no answer. 
He had hired an old negro to drive him over. 
There was no one there, but the door was not 
locked and he had decided to stay there till some 
one came. He was not much better off than be- 
fore he had obtained the letter. 

‘‘Well,” Scott thought, “there is nothing to do 
but wait till the supervisor turns up,” and he pro- 
ceeded to investigate his new surroundings. 

The little three-room cabin, built of rough lum- 
ber with battens over the cracks, was exactly like 
numbers of other ranger cabins he had seen, but 
its location had been selected with more than the 
usual attention to beauty and comfort. It nestled 
just within the edge of a very dense stand of tall, 
longleaf pine^ and the little front yard ran out 
to meet the broad sand beach. Flowerbeds of 
hibiscus and groups of oleanders lined the walk 
of crushed oyster shells, and plants^with which 
5 


SCOTT BURTON 


Scott was entirely unfamiliar were scattered 
around in great profusion on either side of the 
cabin. It seemed to Scott as though a woman 
must have planned it all, for he could not imagine 
a man taking so much pains with the decoration 
of his home. He found himself thinking that it 
was no wonder this fellow had not caught the 
timber thieves. 

Just to the west of the cabin a little creek 
bordered with titi and sweet jasmine wandered 
slowly out to meet the blue waters of the Gulf. 
It could not always have flowed as slowly as it 
did now, for some time in the past it had built 
quite a little delta which extended out in the form 
of a miniature cape, and was covered with a 
grove of tall, stately palmettos. Far out from 
the shore a long line of low-lying sand islands 
broke the horizon. It was certainly an ideal spot. 

The interior of the cabin was quite as tastily 
equipped as the exterior, and the cupboard 
seemed to be stocked for a long siege. There 
was nothing lacking even to the luxuries. Scott 
smiled as he thought of his own bare little shack 
high up in the southern Rockies with the round 
bullet hole in the windowpane. 

6 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘‘I don’t care if that sissy supervisor does not 
show up for a week,” Scott grunted contentedly 
as he settled down in a comfortable steamer chair 
on the porch. No one could have asked for a 
better place to wait. But Scott was not much 
given to idle comfort, especially when his curi- 
osity was aroused, and it usually was aroused 
about something. Just now he was almost wild 
to know something more of this new problem 
which he had been given to solve. He watched 
a little flock of sandpipers run along the smooth 
beach a way, following the very edge of a wave, 
but long before they had turned the point of the 
little palmetto cape he jumped restlessly from 
the chair and went into the cabin to study a map 
which he had noticed hanging on the wall. 

It was a detailed map, showing the irregular 
boundary of Okalatchee forest and the different 
types of timber. It was a great sprawling tract 
of a million acres extending along the gulf to 
the river on the west, to the farm lands on the 
east, and north to the big swamp. It was cov- 
ered with unfamiliar terms he had seen in books, 
but which had never seemed real to him before. 
He had always read them before as he would read 
7 


SCOTT BURTON 


the names in a fairy tale, and here he was in the 
very midst of them: pine ridge and cypress 
swamp, hardwood bottom and gum slough, low 
hammock and baygall, high hammock and cane 
break, turpentine orchards and stills. 

He marveled at the great number of ridges 
shown in that flat country, and the many long, 
stringlike swamps which paralleled the river and 
the coast. And he wondered where in all that 
maze of unknown country the timber thieves 
whom he was supposed to catch were working. 
He noted several ranger stations shown on the 
map and wondered whether any of them were 
connected with the mystery as had been the case 
in the sheep business in the West, or whether 
there were really any thieves at all. He remem- 
bered reading a story in which men had been con- 
victed on circumstantial evidence of stealing a 
raft of logs, and it was not till they had served 
a month in jail that the raft had been found in 
the bottom of the pond where it had been tied. 

If only the supervisor, or any one else who 
could tell him anything about it, would come. 
He had not liked the ‘‘gum-shoe” game as he had 
called it when he had been obliged to try his hand 
8 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

at it in the West, but he found himself eager to 
get at it here because other men had tried it and 
failed. It seemed to him like a challenge and he 
was eager to accept it. 

He pored over the map, studying the lay of 
the land and letting his imagination run wild. 
He had caught those thieves in forty different 
ways in at least a dozen different parts of the map 
when the failing light warned him that it was 
time to get supper and prepare for the night. 

He had no instructions or invitation to make 
use of that cabin or the supplies in it, but there is 
a certain freemasonry among the men of the 
woods which was invitation enough for him. He 
had no hesitation in spreading his blankets on 
one of the beds and ransacking the cupboard for 
his supper. There was plenty to choose from 
and the wood was laid in the stove ready for the 
match. In half an hour he was sitting down to 
his lonely meal. 

But it was not destined to be a lonely meal. 
Scott had hardly finished what he probably would 
have called his “first course,’^ when he heard a 
light step on the shell walk, a thud or twc^on the 
porch, and a man loomed big in the doorway. 

9 


CHAPTER II 


S COTT’S first impression was that this was 
the biggest man he had ever seen. He 
almost filled the doorway and the crown 
of his Stetson brushed the frame. His keen eye 
took in the interior of the cabin in one swift 
glance as he entered and then focused steadily on 
Scott, who had risen smiling to greet him. 

“Mr. Burton, I presume?” he said, smiling 
pleasantly and extending a cordial hand. “My 
name is Graham. Glad to see you.” 

“I am afraid that I am trespassing on your 
property, your provisions and your good nature,” 
Scott explained, “but I did not know what else to 
do.” 

“Wasn’t anything else to do,” Mr. Graham 
said as he hung his hat carefully on a nail. “If 
you have just cooked supper enough for three I 
shall not say a word.” 

Scott involuntarily glanced toward the door. 


10 


SCOTT BURTON 


Mr. Graham noticed the look. ‘‘Oh, there isnT 
anybody with me,” he laughed, “that's just the 
way I feel. Had lunch with a cracker to-day. 
Maybe you don't know what that means yet, but 
you soon will.'' 

“Well, I wasn't expecting two men to supper,” 
Scott laughed, “but I think there is plenty for all 
three of us.” 

Scott started to get another cup and plate, but 
Mr. Graham had already gotten them for him- 
self and took the seat opposite. He had never 
seen a man who looked more like his ideal of a 
woodsman, or one whom he had liked better at 
first sight. They had not been together five min- 
utes and yet Scott felt as though he had known 
this big man for months. 

“I had word from Washington that you would 
be down here,” Mr. Graham explained, “but I 
did not know just when you would come. I had 
a trip to make and thought I would get it in be- 
fore you arrived. Found out at the postoffice 
that you had beaten me to it. What do you think 
of my hang-out here?” 

“It's a wonder!” Scott exclaimed enthusiasti- 
cally. “I was just thinking before you came that 


SCOTT BURTON 


I would not mind waiting here for you for a week 
or two.” 

Mr. Graham was evidently pleased with his 
enthusiasm. “Don’t blame you, I feel pretty much 
that way myself. I ran on to it by chance one 
time and it took my fancy so that I decided to fix 
it up for my summer headquarters. I like it so 
well now that I stay here nearly all the time.” 

''You fixed it up?” Scott exclaimed incredu- 
lously. 

“Sure,” the big fellow grinned, immediately di- 
vining his thoughts. “Thought some woman did 
it, did you?” 

Scott admitted it rather sheepishly. 

“Yes,” Mr. Graham confessed, “I am some- 
what of a lady myself when it comes to a love of 
flowers and beauty. I dawdle around out there 
in the yard a good share of my spare time. Not 
many ‘movies’ around here to distract a fellow’s 
attention.” 

And so they talked till the meal was finished, 
the dishes washed, and the dishrag hung on its 
proper nail; for Mr. Graham was as orderly in 
the house as he was in the yard. Then they set- 
tled down in the steamer chairs on the porch and 


12 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

gazed in silence for a few minutes at the line of 
islands shimmering in the moonlit bay. It was 
like a scene from a fairy tale. 

Mr. Graham broke the spell with a sigh. "T 
could look at a thing like that all night, but I sup- 
pose you are burning up to know something of 
this peculiar job to which they have assigned 
you.’^ 

Scott admitted that he was rather curious. 

“Well, Til try to tell you the whole story. The 
trouble started about two years ago. The Quiller 
Lumber Company had bought a big bunch of pine 
and cypress timber up near the edge of the big 
swamp. They are a small concern and do not 
have a very large crew. Of course, that means 
slow work and easy checking for us. Their slow- 
ness came to be a standing joke with the ranger 
up there who looks after the scaling. He used to 
say in his diary every now and then, ‘Quiller got 
down another tree to-day.’ 

“They had been at it about six months when 
the foreman came down to see me. ‘Have you 
noticed anything peculiar about our scale?’ he 
asked. ‘Noticed there has not been much to scale,’ 
I told him. ‘That’s just it,’ he said, ‘checked up 

13 


SCOTT BURTON 


on the stumps any?' I explained to him that we 
seldom did that till a considerable quantity had 
been cut. 

Well, I have,' he said, 'and more than half 
of the stuff we have cut ain^t there f 

"He went on to tell me that he had had a night 
watchman on the boom for two weeks and tried 
in every way to check the thing up, but the logs 
kept disappearing just the same. A lot of his 
niggers got superstitious about it and quit the 
job." 

"How do they handle their logs ?" Scott asked. 

"Skid them down to the edge of the big swamp 
on high wheels and shove them into a bag boom. 
Then they raft them and float them out into the 
river." 

"Do they keep them in the boom long?" Scott 
was thinking again of the story of the sunken 
logs. 

"Oh, they are not in the bottom of the swamp 
if that is what you are driving at. Murphy has 
prodded the bottom of that pond with a pike pole 
a dozen times." 

"Is there a channel through to the river or can 
they take them out anywhere?" 

14 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘‘Fve hunted all over there myself and I can- 
not find a place where they could take them out 
except through that one channel/’ 

‘‘I suppose you have had that channel 
watched ?” 

‘Watched, I had Murphy hidden up there on 
a point of land for a month and the logs disap- 
peared out of the boom right along just the 
same/’ 

“Are you sure that Murphy is all right ?” 

“Murphy, why, he thinks more of the Service 
than the Secretary of Agriculture does. No, sir, 
it is not graft, I am sure of that ; but I would give 
a good deal to know what it is.” 

“Do they disappear before or after you scale 
them ?” 

“Did go both before and after. We scale them 
all in the woods now before they put them in the 
boom, but they are going out of the boom just 
the same.” 

There was a long pause while both men 
frowned unseeing across the beautiful lagoon. 
Scott was thinking of the ranger who had been 
the leader of the sheep gang in the West and won- 
dering how he could best get a check on Murphy. 

15 


SCOTT BURTON 


Mr. Graham had long ago gotten past the point 
where he could think about it logically at all. 

'‘Has the thing been going on ever since?'’ 
Scott asked. 

"For two solid years,” Mr. Graham answered 
peevishly. "I have put about half my time on 
the pesky thing and Murphy hangs around there 
like a baited bulldog. The foreman is almost 
crazy about it. He has all but accused the 
' 'gators’ of eating the logs.” 

"I suppose they take some rafts out occasion- 
ally?” 

"Sure. They have been taking them out right 
along. Have speeded up considerably during the 
past year.” 

"Ever check up the delivery of those logs ?” 

"Many a time, and so has the company. Check 
to the dot with the scale in the rafts.” 

"If you are scaling in the woods you are get- 
ting paid for all they cut, aren't you?” 

"Yes, the company is paying all right. They 
howl and checkscale a lot, but they pay.” 

"Then why is the Service interested in it? 
They are not losing anything by it.” 

"No, they are not losing anything on this scale, 
i6 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

but it is hurting our other sales and giving the 
forest a bad name. We do not like to have a 
thing like that going on under our very noses. 
Besides, it gets on a fellow’s nerves. I tried my 
best on it. Hated to give it up, but had to confess 
myself licked at last. Then I asked the office for 
help and you are the result.” 

‘‘Some result,” Scott grunted. “I am not a 
professional detective. I just stumbled on to that 
sheep graft out there by chance, and now look 
what it’s gotten me into. I had never been to 
Florida and was glad enough to come down, but 
there is a fat chance of my solving this mess. It 
looks about as clear as mud.” 

“That’s about the way it looks to me,” Mr. 
Graham nodded, “about as clear as mud. But all 
of us here are hypnotized now. We have been 
mooning over the thing so long that we cannot 
see straight any more. We may be walking all 
over some clue which will be perfectly clear to a 
stranger with an unfogged mind. Don’t give up 
before you start, man.” 

“I’m not giving up,” Scott exclaimed, “far from 
it. Now that I have come all the way down here 
I simply have to put the job through, but I’m 

17 


SCOTT BURTON 

going to steer clear of these detective jobs in the 
future. They are too uncertain. Too much de- 
pends on luck.” 

‘'Well, here’s wishing you luck,” said Mr. Gra- 
ham, rising; “we’ll give you all the help we can, 
and grunt for you. Let’s go to bed, and to- 
morrow we’ll ride out and have a look at the 
arena.” He paused for a moment at the porch 
railing. “Isn’t that fine? You can just imagine 
old Ponce de Leon threading his way along that 
beach looking for the Fountain of Youth four 
hundred years ago, and I’ll bet he stopped and 
sampled that very creek.” 

This historical touch gave the country a new 
interest to Scott. 


CHAPTER III 


S COTT and Mr. Graham had an early 
breakfast together. 

‘T suppose there is no use in asking a 
man from the West if he rides?” Mr. Graham 
laughed. 

‘'Not much,” Scott replied. ‘Tf a man lives in 
that country he has to ride. It almost broke my 
heart to leave my saddle horse behind, but the 
‘super’ there seemed to think that I would be 
transferred West again and would not be here 
long enough to make it worth while to ship him 
East.” 

“Humph,” Mr. Graham growled, “judging 
from my own experience you will be grayheaded 
before you catch those thieves. Well, I have two 
ponies here and you can use one of them. He’s 
not the best in the world, but I guess he’ll do.” 

Scott was glad to find the western stock saddle 
in use here instead of the English saddle he had 

19 


SCOTT BURTON 


been used to in his home in Massachusetts. The 
man who has once become familiar with a stock 
saddle wants no other. The pony, too, though 
far from the equal of the big black stallion he 
had bought from Jed Clark, was a very good one. 
It was easy to see that Mr. Graham was a con- 
noisseur in more things than cabin sites and 
flowerbeds. Everything he owned was of the 
best. 

“We’ll take a run up around the cuttings first,” 
Mr. Graham explained, “have lunch at the tur- 
pentine camp, and come back by the river. That 
will give you a pretty good idea of the whole for- 
est and show you just how the land lies. Then 
you can study the thing in detail at your leisure 
and tackle it any way you please. I’ll help you 
all I can but I have failed at it too often to have 
any advice to offer.” 

“I’ll probably need all the advice I can get 
whether it is any good or not. I certainly have 
no ideas about it now, but there cannot be much 
wrong with seeing the country first.” 

Their road — it was little more than some wind- 
ing wheel tracks — lead through a rather thin 
stand of tall, yellow pines which were straight and 


20 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

smooth as telegraph poles with only a few flat 
branches near the top. In places there was 
scarcely any underbrush on the ground, only a 
few stray spears of wire grass and a thin layer 
of dead needles which scarcely covered the white 
sand. Here and there were large patches of scrub 
palmetto, just leaves three or four feet high grow- 
ing up from the snakelike roots which seemed to 
lie almost on the surface of the ground. With 
the exception of these palmettoes it did not look 
very different from the pine forests of the South- 
west with which Scott was so familiar. 

“Where are all those ridges which are marked 
on the map hereabouts ?” Scott asked, as he looked 
curiously at the level country. So far he had seen 
no sign of a hill. 

“There is one of them,” Mr. Graham laughed. 
“Doesn’t look much like the ‘Great Divide,’ does 
it?” 

“I don’t get you,” Scott said, still scanning the 
country. 

“Well, you see this country is all made up of 
strips of swamp and strips of dry land. The dry 
land is often not more than two or three feet 
higher than the swamp, but it is called a ridge just 
21 


SCOTT BURTON 

the same. Must seem a little strange to a man 
from the mountains.’' 

Just ahead of them appeared a solid bank of 
dense underbrush, all woven together with climb- 
ing vines which arched the road like a gateway. 
The road dipped slightly under the arch where 
the ground was black and damp, but rose quickly 
and was almost immediately out in the open pine 
woods again. 

‘‘That,” Mr. Graham explained, ‘‘is a baygall, 
and this is another ridge. Always be careful how 
you try to ride through those baygalls where there 
is no road, they are sometimes very soft and even 
if they are not you are more than apt to hang 
yourself in those vines. They have yanked me 
out of the saddle more than once.” 

For two hours they rode through this fascinat- 
ing country of alternating swamp and pine flats 
without seeing any one or any sign of human 
habitation. It seemed to Scott even more de- 
serted than his own wild, rocky mountains. 
They ducked through a little baygall and sud- 
denly came out on to an open ridge from which 
all the timber had been cut. A more desolate- 
looking place Scott had seldom seen. Every 
22 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


Stick of timber was gone and under the Forest 
Service regulations the slashings had been burned 
so clean that the ground was perfectly bare. The 
low stumps stood out like tombstones in a ceme- 
tery. 

‘‘You are approaching the haunted grounds 
now!'^ exclaimed Mr. Graham. “This is where 
Qualley is cutting and over yonder in that swamp 
lies the enchanted pool where all those logs have 
so mysteriously disappeared.^’ 

They could hear the sound of axes now and the 
darkies laughing and shouting at the mules. 
Soon they overtook the strangest-looking rig that 
Scott had ever seen. It looked at first like two 
great wheels rolling along the road alone, but 
as they drew closer he could make out a pair of 
mules ahead of them and three long logs hung on 
chains underneath. He had read of these “high 
wheels” (they were actually eight feet high), but 
these were the first he had ever seen. A darky 
was sitting on the long tongue singing light- 
heartedly and punctuating his song with entirely 
unnecessary shouts at the patient mules. When 
he saw the riders his shiny black face broke into 
a broad grin. 


23 


SCOTT BURTON 

“Whatever crooked work is going on around 
here/’ Mr. Graham remarked soberly, “these 
darkies are not in on it. They are always as 
jovial in their welcome as that fellow there and 
they are scared to death of this pond.” 

“Or they are good actors,” Scott said. He 
was unwilling to except any one from his suspi- 
cion. 

Mr. Graham shook his head. “Of course, you 
are right to suspect everybody. I was just ex- 
pressing my own convictions. A white man can 
act scared pretty well but when a nigger turns 
gray he is scared.” 

A little farther on the logging road ended ab- 
ruptly at a rough log dock on the edge of a pond. 
It was unlike any other log pond which Scott had 
ever seen. It was in reality an arm of the big 
cypress swamp. Great chum-butted cypress 
trees rose queerly out of the water around its 
edges. They were bare of leaves, but their limbs 
were draped with great festoons of Spanish moss. 
A number of long pine logs, some loose and some 
bound together into rafts, floated quietly on the 
black waters. Around the head of the pond di- 
rectly opposite them and back a way from the 
24 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

water were the crude board shacks of the logging 
crew. 

It was a dull, gray day and the whole scene pre- 
sented a gloomy enough picture. 

'‘So this is the haunted pond?’’ Scott asked 
eagerly, as he took in every detail of the sur- 
roundings. "It sure looks it to-day.” 

"Yes, this is the place, but it has had me baf- 
fled for so long now that I am not sure whether 
it is haunted or enchanted. Seems sometimes as 
though it must be enchanted.” 

They sat their horses and gazed at the pond 
in silence for several minutes. Mr. Graham had 
stopped even thinking about the possible solu- 
tion. Scott was studying all the details of the 
layout. This was the place where his problem 
must be solved and he wanted to be familiar with 
every foot of it. 

"What’s that?” he asked suddenly, pointing at 
a bunch of brush near the opposite side of the 
pond. 

Mr. Graham studied the clump carefully and 
made out the outline of a man half screened by 
the foliage. Even as they looked the form melted 
away. 


25 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘‘Come on !” Scott called as he spurred forward. 
“Let's ride around there and see who that is/' 

They dashed wildly around the end of the pond 
on the trail which the logging teams had made. 
It could not have been much more than a minute 
till they had reached the point opposite the clump. 
There was thirty feet of water between it and the 
shore, and it was screened quite as thoroughly on 
this side as on the other. They examined it mi- 
nutely but found no sign of life. 

“You stay here and watch it while I go get a 
boat," Mr. Graham suggested. He rode back to- 
ward the shanties and Scott kept his eyes glued 
on the spot where he had seen that mysterious 
figure. 

Before Mr. Graham had ridden fifty yards a 
shrill whistle arrested him. Scott turned quickly 
at the sound and saw a man walking leisurely 
toward him along the edge of the swamp. Mr.j 
Graham rode back again to join them. 

“Thought you had him that time, didn’t you?" 
grinned the newcomer. 

“Sure did," replied Mr. Graham good-na- 
turedly. “Was that you out there on that| 
stump ?" 


26 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVED 

The man grinned again and nodded. Scott 
thought that he looked a little ashamed of his 
discovery and studied him suspiciously. 

“What made you beat it when you saw that we 
had spotted you?’* 

“Well, I did not want to wave because I did’ 
not want those other fellows to know that I was* 
there. I knew you’d come whooping around here 
to have a close look, so I slipped out and came 
along the shore to meet you.” 

“Pardon me,” exclaimed Mr. Graham, noting 
the curious glances the two men were casting at 
each other. “I had forgotten my manners, 
Murphy, this is Mr. Burton who has been sent 
down here by the office to solve this log-stealing 
mystery. Murphy is the ranger in this district,” 
he explained to Scott, “and can probably tell you 
more about this thing than anybody else.” 

The two men shook hands and Scott found him- 
self looking into a pair of clear, blue, unfaltering 
eyes. 

“I ought to be able to tell you something about 
it,” the ranger admitted doggedly, “but I can't 
tell you a blamed thing. I’ve sat on that stump 
27 


SCOTT BURTON 

out there till IVe worn it smooth, but I have not 
found out a thing. Not a single thing.” 

‘‘Ever watched at night ?” Scott asked. 

“Day and night,” he replied. “Watched out 
there all one night without seeing so much as a 
bubble on the water, and in the morning Qualley 
reported another bunch of logs missing. Gone 
right from under my nose.” 

Scott looked mystified but said nothing. 

“I^m showing Mr. Burton the layout to-day 
and letting him get the general run of things. 
Going over to the turpentine camp for lunch and 
have to keep moving. You will help him all you 
can if he wants you.” 

“You bet I will !” Murphy exclaimed enthusias- 
tically. “IVe had my try at it. Now Fd like to 
see how somebody else goes about it. Call on me 
any old time,” he called to them as they rode 
away. 

“Funny place for him to be,” Scott commented 
after a long silence. 

“The thing is getting on Murphy's nerves,” 
Mr. Graham laughed. “It would not surprise 
me much to find him in the bottom of that pond 
28 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

in a diving suit. He wakes up in the middle of 
the night and sneaks over there.’’ 

Scott did not say any more about it, but he de- 
cided to keep his eye on Murphy. There might be 
more than one explanation of his interest. At 
least he would bear watching. They rode in si- 
lence for some time, each absorbed in his own 
thoughts. All traces of the big swamp were far 
behind them and they were once more on the open 
pine ridges. 


CHAPTER IV 


T first Scott did not notice any diflference 



between this forest and the one they had 


traversed earlier in the day; he was too 
busy thinking of that enchanted pond, but he 
soon realized that there was a difference. There 
was a little earthen flowerpot hanging near the 
ground on the side of each tree. On some of the 
larger ones there were three or four of them. 
For three or four inches above each cup the tree 
was scratched as though some great bear had 
been sharpening his claws there. These scratches 
were very regular and there was exactly the same 
number above each cup. At the bottom of the 
scratches and draining into the flowerpots were 
two little tin gutters stuck into slits in the tree. 

Scott knew that they must be in the turpentine 
orchard. It was the first one he had ever seen. 
He was very curious to know all about it, but he 
did not want to appear too ignorant. ‘Ts this a 
very large orchard?’’ he asked. 


SCOTT BURTON 

‘‘About twenty crops,” Mr. Graham answered 
absently. 

That meant over two hundred thousand cups 
and it seemed to Scott like an enormous num- 
ber. It did not seem possible to take care of so 
many. It was not long till they saw a darky in 
overalls and undershirt shambling about from 
tree to tree. 

“Ever seen them chip?” Mr. Graham asked, 
suddenly realizing that it must all be entirely new 
to Scott. Scott admitted that he had not. 

“They are pretty clever at it,” Mr. Graham 
continued, riding over to the darky, who greeted 
them with a pleased grin. “Show us a good 
one now. Josh. This gentleman has never seen 
it done.” 

There is nothing that a darky likes better than 
showing off an accomplishment to a stranger. 
He was carrying a heavy iron, weighted with a 
ball at the lower end and bent into a loop of sharp- 
ened steel at the top. He gave this instrument a 
fantastic flourish, leaned down over a cup, and 
with a few deft strokes cut a new scratch in the 
outer wood of the tree, perfectly straight and 
overlapping just a little the streak below it. He 

31 


SCOTT BURTON 


repeated the operation on the other side of the 
cup and straightened up with another grin. 

‘‘Pretty good Mr. Graham exclaimed approv- 
ingly. 

“Couldn’t beat dat one, boss,” replied the darky 
with a chuckle. 

“Been over to the pond lately. Josh ?” 

“Who, me? No, suh, you don’t ketch dis heah 
niggah hangin’ roun’ deah. Dat eah place 
hanted, boss, sho nuf hanted. Dey tell me you 
kin put a log in de watah deah and see it ’solve 
smack befo’ yo’ eyes.” And his own eyes rolled 
strangely and showed a broad expanse of white. 

“Sounds bad,” said Mr. Graham, laughing as 
he turned to ride away. “No danger of his steal- 
ing any logs out of there,” he remarked to Scott 
when they were out of hearing. “Looked easy 
enough to see him cut that streak, didn’t it? Try 
it yourself once. It would take you ten minutes 
and then it would look like beaver work. That 
man has to make the rounds of his crop every 
week; over three thousand streaks a day.” 

Just twenty men were putting two streaks a 
week over each one of those two hundred thou- 
sand cups. It seemed marvelous to Scott. In 

32 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

another place he saw a man with a large wooden 
bucket and a paddle going from tree to tree, 
emptying the cups. He emptied his bucket into 
barrels beside the road and a wagon collected 
the barrels. Scott could not help thinking what 
a glorious fire there would be if it ever got started 
in all that resin. 

Before long they came in sight of a group of 
rough board buildings strung along the road like 
the main street of a small town. 

'That,’’ Mr. Graham explained, "is the still. 
The darkies and their families live in those little 
board shacks pretty much as they used to in slav- 
ery days. The company keeps a store here for 
them, the superintendent lives in that house next 
to the store and the still is down at the other end 
of the street. It’s quite a town. They will use 
this camp for their turpentine operations for 
thirteen years and then log for three years more.” 

Slovenly negro women, many of the older ones 
smoking pipes, gazed at them from the doorways, 
and shiny black pickaninnies rolled the whites of 
their eyes in awed attention as they passed. Near 
the store they met Mr. Roberts, the superintend- 
ent, coming home to dinner. He acknowledged 
33 


SCOTT BURTON 


Scott’s introduction very effusively and promptly 
invited them both in to dinner. His wife was of 
the cracker type and looked old at thirty-five. 

In spite of the man’s cordiality Scott did not 
like his looks. He had a sallow, malarial com- 
plexion, shifty eyes and loose-knit, gangling build. 
There was a hard, cunning look about his mouth, 
and he wore a large revolver very conspicuously 
on his belt. Scott had the feeling that he was 
being very narrowly watched, but whenever he 
looked at Mr. Roberts he found him deeply ab- 
sorbed in something else. They finished their 
salt pork, hominy and grease-soaked beet greens 
in comparative silence. 

“Reckon maybe you’d like to see the still if 
you are new to these parts,” Mr. Roberts re- 
marked to Scott. 

“Yes,” Mr. Graham answered for him, “we 
both want to see it. I never get tired of hearing 
that old still growl.” 

They walked down the street a little way to 
the still. It was not a very imposing-looking 
building. A roof set on posts over a copper still 
which was built into a brick firebox. There was 
a platform at the side on which the crude resin 
34 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

was unloaded from the wagons and dumped into 
the retort and a shed on the other side where the 
turpentine was stored. Sitting on the ground and 
a little apart from the shed was a small army of 
rough barrels full to the top with solid resin. 

Mr. Graham explained the process to Scott. 
‘‘You see they dump the resin just as they bring 
it in from the woods into that retort and heat it. 
The turpentine is boiled out and goes out of that 
little pipe at the top in the form of gas. Then 
they run the pipe down through some cold water 
and the gas condenses into liquid turpentine which 
they put into those tight barrels. When it makes 
just the right noise they pour some water into 
the retort to help the process along. Is she pretty 
near ready to growl, George?’’ he called to an 
old darky who was tending the retort. 

“Ought to be pretty nigh, boss,” the old man 
grinned. It was evidently a familiar question for 
which he was listening and it tickled him. 

“When all the turpentine has gone off they 
pour the resin into those rough barrels,” Mr. 
Graham continued. “It hardens so quickly that 
the barrels do not have to be very tight. They 
put them together right here.” 

35 


SCOTT BURTON 


'‘Is that all they have to do to get the kind 
of turpentine that is used in paint?'' Scott asked. 

"Oh, some of it is redistilled and refined a little 
for certain uses but much of it is used just so." 

They walked around the place a little and Scott 
learned many interesting facts about the turpen- 
tine industry. There was a lot more he wanted 
to know but the old darky called them excitedly. 
"She's startin' to howl, boss." 

They hurried over to the still and could hear a 
peculiar growling sound coming from the retort. 
"That's the stuff," Mr. Graham chuckled. "Now 
listen to her when the water goes in." 

The water was poured in and the roar was up to 
expectations. "That makes her talk," Mr. Gra- 
ham laughed. "Now we might as well be going. 
She won't growl again for a long time." 

"Dat's right," the old darky chuckled. "Won't 
be nuffin' mo' fo' yo' to heah for some time." He 
fully appreciated Mr. Graham's joke of hearing 
the old still growl. 

Mr. Roberts walked back to the house with 
them to get their horses. "See anything suspi- 
cious at the pond this morning, Mr. Burton?" he 
asked casually. 


36 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

“Oh, no, nothing except Murphy,’' he added 
with a laugh. He said it as carelessly as he 
could, but he watched Roberts keenly. He felt 
somehow that this sallow cracker was surely con- 
nected with the pond mystery and he wanted to 
see if the mention of Murphy’s name as a sus- 
picious character would affect him. If it did, 
he did not show it. He seemed to have asked 
the question simply to make conversation and 
only grinned at Scott’s answer. 

As they were mounting Mr. Roberts pulled his 
revolver and carelessly shot a toad which was 
hopping across the road some fifteen yards away. 
“Getting near pay day,” he said in explanation, 
“and I have to get in practice.” 

Possibly it was nothing more than the natural 
temptation for a man with a gun to shoot any 
live thing he sees, but Scott, with his intuitive 
dislike of the man, felt sure that it was meant for 
a warning display of his skill with a gun and he 
thought about it in silence on the ride home 
through the whispering pines. 


CHAPTER V 


HE next morning Scott started out early. 



He went alone, explaining to Mr. Gra- 


ham that he wanted to scout the big 
swamp and see if he could find any clues. He 
did not know what they would be but he felt 
that it would be impossible to hide anything out 
in the open pine country, and that the key to the 
mystery gjust be somewhere in that gloomy 
swamp. He had studied the map thoroughly the 
evening before and had made an outline tracing 
of the swamp to carry with him. Armed with 
this map and a consuming curiosity he set out 
on foot for a point on the river where Mr. Gra- 
ham assured him he would find a small bateau. 

It was a bright, sunshiny morning when he 
started, but even before he reached the river the 
wind changed to the south and a dense fog rolled 
in off the gulf. In fifteen minutes the water was 
dripping from the trees as though from a heavy 
rain. The effect was almost weird. The trunks 


38 


SCOTT BURTON 


of the trees immediately around him were plain 
enough; at fifty feet they looked like ghosts. He 
walked in that little circle of forest and felt like 
a man in a cage. New trees loomed out of the 
fog ahead, stood boldly out as he passed them, 
and were quickly swallowed in the shroud be- 
hind. The trunks seemed to run up into the 
very sky and the tops were lost to view. It was 
Scott’s first experience with a real fog and he 
realized how easy it would be to get lost. 

By keeping a careful watch he finally succeeded 
in locating the trail to the river and had no diffi- 
culty in finding the bateau just where Mr. Gra- 
ham had told him it would be. It was a peculiar- 
looking craft twelve feet long and two and a half 
feet wide in the middle. It was even narrower 
at the ends which were square like a barge. It 
was flat-bottomed and fully deserved the descrip- 
tion of ‘Tippy” which Mr. Graham had given it. 
There was a rough, home-made paddle beside it. 
Scott was used to handling a canoe, but he found 
this new boat far crankier than anything he had 
ever seen before. It seemed to lurch sideways 
without the slightest provocation. In the first 
mile up the river he came within an ace of up- 
39 


SCOTT BURTON 


setting a dozen times. Gradually he learned the 
balance of it and got along pretty well. It did 
not seem to draw any water at all. Mr. Graham 
had said that it would float free on a light dew. 

Toward the middle of the morning the fog 
burned off and the skies were clear once more. 
The shores were low and fringed with heavy 
brush, back of which was a strip of mixed hard- 
wood forest made up mostly of hickories, oaks, 
and gums. It reminded Scott of the tropical stage 
settings he had seen at the theater. Now and 
then a little green heron or a big hooper crane 
would flop silently off an overhanging limb and 
disappear lazily around a bend in the river. Once 
he thought he saw the eyes of an alligator stick- 
ing out of the sluggish water, but they sank si- 
lently before he could make sure. Gray squirrels 
were scampering all through these hardwood 
trees, but they, too, seemed to be utterly silent. 
Scott felt like one of those old Spanish explorers 
who had made their way through that same coun- 
try almost five hundred years before. It did not 
seem as though things could have changed much 
since then. 

Three miles up the river the east bank melted 
40 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

away and the big swamp began. This was the 
place which Scott had come to explore. He 
turned the bateau and paddled out of the river 
into the swamp. The break in the bank was only 
a narrow one and beyond the passage the strip 
of hardwoods continued as before, but it was a 
very narrow strip and back of it as far as the 
eye could see the swamp ran parallel to the river. 
The timber was almost as heavy here as it was 
on the dry land, but they were the great gaunt 
cypress trees instead of the hardwoods. The 
cypress is the largest tree east of the Pacific coast 
forests, and there in the gloom of the swamp 
decked out in the great festoons of Spanish moss, 
they seemed giants indeed. Around each one 
were a number of cypress knees, peculiar, stake- 
like growths which come up to the surface of the 
water to get air for the roots. Some stuck up 
high out of the water, others did not quite reach 
the surface. These last had a disconcerting way 
of poking into the bottom of the boat or inter- 
fering with the paddle. Several times they al- 
most capsized the cranky little bateau. ‘‘Ought 
to have a pilot for these reefs,” Scott growled, 
as he threaded his way slowly through them. 

41 


SCOTT BURTON 


He decided to skirt the east shore first and see 
how large the thing really was. It might take 
days, even weeks to see it all, but he felt sure that 
the solution of the mystery was here in this 
swamp and he did not know any other way to get 
at it. The swamp seemed even more silent than 
the river. Scott found it even more fascinating. 
Occasionally enormous turtles poked heads al- 
most as large as saucers, and about as flat, above 
the surface and eyed him curiously. He saw 
several black, hairy spiders with a three-inch 
spread of legs crawling on the tree trunks, and 
twice he saw fat, cotton-mouthed moccasins un- 
coil themselves sluggishly from the trunks of 
fallen trees and glide silently into the water. 

Mile after mile he wound his way slowly among 
the trees and the cypress knees, always keeping 
in touch with the ragged shore line, and watch- 
ing keenly for any sign of a trail or landing 
place. He found many of them but they all turned 
out to be animal trails which showed no trace of 
a human footstep. They were, nevertheless, in- 
tensely interesting to Scott. He had always 
prided himself on his woodcraft, and these med- 
leys of coon, fox, wildcat and deer tracks were 
42 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

offering him new fields to conquer. He became 
so interested in them that he traveled on and on 
from one trail to another, wholly forgetful of 
time. He found dozens of smaller tracks in the 
black, plastic mud, tracks which he did not know, 
and it piqued both his pride and his curiosity. 
He almost forgot his object in coming there. 

He had pottered along this way for several 
miles, following the crooked shore line of the 
swamp and stopping to examine every trail when 
a sudden pang of hunger caused him to glance at 
his watch. It was three o’clock. He laid his pad- 
dle across the bateau in front of him and sat there 
idly watching the shore while he ate his lunch. 
He had not thought to bring any water and the 
black waters of the swamp looked uninviting. 
However, he was well accustomed to eating dry 
lunches in the Southwest and made out very well. 
He decided that he would continue his search till 
four o’clock and then start for home ; but he be- 
came so interested that he overstayed his time a 
little. It was half-past four before he realized it. 

Scott knew that he could never reach the land- 
ing, probably not even find the passage out of 
the swamp, before dark, if he retraced his course 
43 


SCOTT BURTON 


around the jagged shore line. It would be much 
shorter and quicker to go directly across the 
swamp to the hardwood bottom and then follow 
that down to the opening. Unfortunately, the 
sun disappeared behind a bunch of leaden clouds 
before he had gone very far and left him without 
a guide. The sameness of the swamp and the 
utter lack of landmarks made it hard to hold 
the course, but he felt pretty sure of his direc- 
tions and paddled on confidently as fast as the 
cypress knees and partially submerged roots 
would let him. Fallen trees and clumps of brush 
forced him to make many short detours which 
were very confusing. He had come much farther 
that morning than he had realized. 

He had not seen any trace of the hardwoods 
along the river when darkness came with the 
swiftness so characteristic of the southern night- 
fall. Darkness seemed literally to fall on him. 
There was not a star in the sky and it was impos- 
sible to penetrate the black veil for even a few 
feet. He almost bumped into the trees before 
he could make them out, and the cypress knees 
which he could not see at all seemed to be every- 


44 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


where. And yet he groped his way along in the 
hope of reaching the river. 

About nine o'clock the skies cleared. The light 
helped him to make a little faster progress, but 
he could not see any stars that he knew, and could 
not make sure of his direction. He had almost 
come to the conclusion that there was no limit to 
this swamp, when a bank of black shadow loomed 
ahead of him. It was a shore line of some kind. 
Through the screen of brush he caught the shape 
of a pine tree outlined against the sky. It was 
not the hardwood strip along the river. 

There was no use in going any farther now. 
He was about as completely lost as he could very 
well be. The moon would be up about eleven and 
he might as well wait for it right there. He sat 
motionless in the boat and listened to the small 
noises of the night, an occasional splashing along 
the edge of the swamp, the cry of a night heron, 
or the rustling of restless, small birds in the 
branches overhead. A gentle breeze was blowing 
from the direction of the forest. 

Once a faint crackling in the brush, the faint- 
est snapping of a tiny twig sounded loud there 
on the water, told him something was coming to- 
45 


SCOTT BURTON 


ward him. His eyes had become pretty well 
accustomed to the uncertain light, and as he 
watched he recognized the form of a large rac- 
coon making his way out on to a log which 
extended quite a way into the water. It was not 
over twenty feet from the boat. Wholly uncon- 
scious of the silent observer the coon deliberately 
began to prepare his evening meal which he had 
evidently brought with him. He tore it into 
pieces, just what it was Scott could not see, and 
carefully dipped a piece in the water. Then he 
solemnly proceeded to wash it. He rubbed it 
between his front paws and scrubbed it as thor- 
oughly as any laundress, and in much the same 
way. When he was finally satisfied of its clean- 
liness he repeated the process with another piece. 
His meal ended, he washed his hands and wad- 
dled ashore. Scott had often heard that the coon 
would eat nothing without first dipping it in 
water, but he had never imagined any such 
thorough scouring as this. He no longer re^ 
gretted getting lost. Such a chance as that repaid 
him several times over. 

He was almost sure once that he heard the 
creaking of a chain, but it was very faint and was 
46 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

not repeated. Shortly the moon came up almost 
directly in front of him. He was headed straight 
away from the river. With the shadows to guide 
him he turned to the west once more. A couple 
of hours^ paddling brought him to the hardwood 
bottom land and he soon found a passage through 
to the rive^ It was not the same passage where 
he had come in, but one considerably farther up 
the river. 

From there on he had no trouble in finding his 
way. The tide was running out and the bateau 
traveled freely. He had marked the landing well 
and soon had the boat hidden in the accustomed 
place. When he sneaked quietly into the cabin 
it was half-past three, but he stopped to have a 
look at the pantry before he turned in. 

Mr. Graham raised his head and had a squint 
at him, but he did not ask any questions, he did 
not have to — he knew what had happened to a 
man in a strange swamp on a cloudy day. 


CHAPTER VI 


T he next morning Scott went back up the 
river to continue the exploration of the 
swamp. He had some provisions along 
this time and was determined to stay out until 
he had finished the job. He would lose too much 
time going back to the cabin every night. He 
also had a compass. He decided to paddle on 
past the first channel into the swamp to the one 
where he had come out the night before, or rather 
early that same morning. It had appeared to 
him the night before to be about a half a mile 
farther up the stream. He had certainly cov- 
ered much more than that distance now, but had 
not discovered any sign of it. Perhaps it had 
seemed shorter traveling downstream. He would 
go on a little farther. For another half mile he 
poked along the shore examining every break in 
the brush which might indicate a passage, but 
none of them proved to be any more than a little 
bay in the shore. 


48 


SCOTT BURTON 


He knew now that he must have passed it. He 
considered paddling on up to the channel which 
the loggers used and starting his search from 
there, but he thought it might be better to keep 
his search a secret till he had completed it, and 
turned back to hunt once more for the hidden 
channel. 

'‘Seems funny,” Scott muttered to himself, 
"that I could stumble through that passage in 
the night and can’t find it now in broad day- 
light.” 

He paddled briskly back to the place where he 
had started his careful search. From there on 
he examined every foot of the shore. He had 
not gone very far when he stumbled on to a 
clump of tall brush which overhung the water. 
Ordinarily he would have passed it without a 
thought, but he was looking for something now, 
and he pushed the bushes aside with his paddle 
to make sure. There, sure enough, he looked 
into a perfectly clear and, open channel through 
the bank into the swamp. It was broad on the 
inside like the top of a funnel and it was quite 
easy to see why it had not impressed him as a 
hidden channel on his outward trip. He won- 
49 


SCOTT BURTON 

dered whether its existence was known to the 
loggers. He examined the shores and the ap- 
proach, but could not find any trace. Of course 
that was no proof that boats had not used it, but 
it was hardly possible that any great number of 
logs had ever been worked through it without 
leaving some evidence. 

He struck out boldly across the swamp, travel- 
ing due east, and soon came to the forest shore. 
A brief examination told him that he had passed 
there the day before and he paddled rapidly 
northward till he recognized the beginning of 
new territory. From there on he took up a minute 
’examination of the shore line. After his experi- 
ence with the passage into the river he was even 
more careful than he had been the day before. 
All day long he poked slowly in and out of the 
little bays, scrutinizing every trail and not for- 
getting an occasional glance out into the swamp. 
Not a single sign did he see to indicate that any 
one had ever been in the place before. 

Night fell on him unexpectedly as on the night 
before and he determined to land and camp in 
the pine forest. He landed on a big log which 
extended out into the water and made the bateau 
SO 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

fast. The night was so clear and warm that he 
decided not to put up a tent. His sleeping bag 
would give him all the protection that he needed. 
As he was still bent on keeping his whereabouts 
secret and did not know how near to the camp 
he might be, he determined to go without a fire 
and content himself with a cold supper. Ordi- 
narily he would have picked a location next to a 
log or tree, but when he thought of the enormous 
spiders he had seen and the venomous scorpions 
of which he had heard, he selected an open spot 
in a little clearing. He could not put the rattle- 
snakes and cottonmouths entirely out of his 
mind, but he tried hard to forget them. 

His simple supper was soon eaten and he sat in 
the starlight once more, listening to the small 
noises of the night. To the uninitiated these 
small noises often pass unnoticed and seem only 
to intensify the stillness. With many of them 
Scott was already familiar, but in this strange 
country there were others with which he was 
wholly unfamiliar. While he was trying to iden- 
tify some of these he heard once more the creak- 
ing of a chain. It had been so faint the night 
before, and turtles and frogs are capable of such 
SI 


SCOTT BURTON 


strange, creaking noises, that he had not been 
sure of it, but it was nearer to-night and he caught 
a distinct metallic ring in it. 

Scott was all excitement now. He listened so 
intently that it almost hurt, but the sound did not 
come again. Once he thought that he heard the 
drip of a paddle but he could not be sure of that. 
It was possible that he was in sound of the camp. 
Sound travels far over the water on a still night. 
He had no idea where the camp was. But if he 
were close enough to the camp to hear the creak- 
ing of a chain he would certainly hear other 
noises unless the camp was very different from 
any other he had ever seen. It was a great temp- 
tation to scout around the edge of the swamp on 
foot in an attempt to locate the camp, but that 
would be foolish and possibly dangerous when 
he was so unfamiliar with the country. The pine 
had not been cut here as yet. That was a pretty 
good indication that he was not anywhere near 
the camp. 

He sat long into the night, long after the moon 
had risen, listening, but in all that time not an- 
other suspicious sound came out of the weird 
tangle of the swamp. It was past midnight when 

52 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

he relaxed his straining nerves and crawled into 
his sleeping bag with a shiver, for he had not 
noticed the damp night chill which had crept into 
his very bones while he was sitting there motion- 
less. Several times he caught himself listening 
again, wild-eyed, and even after he finally went 
to sleep he continued to dream of that creaking 
chain so vividly that in the morning he could not 
tell whether he had really heard it again or not. 

So eager was he to investigate that curious 
sound that he could hardly wait to eat breakfast. 
All his stuff was soon loaded in the old bateau 
and he set off excitedly on his search. The ques- 
tion was, should he continue to follow the shore 
line as he had been doing or should he take the 
direction from which the sound had seemed to 
come? He decided to follow the shore line. It 
would be better to complete the shore line and 
then examine the open swamp. Scott always liked 
to know what was behind him. He soon found 
that he had not slept very close to the camp. The 
shore line was bare of trails here and he traveled 
at a lively pace. Yet, at the end of an hour, he 
had not seen anything of the pond or the logging 
camp. 


S3 


SCOTT BURTON 


'This blamed old swamp must connect with 
the Lake of the Woods/’ Scott growled as he 
paddled on. 'Tt does not seem as though we 
could have ridden this far the other day.” 

When he rounded a point a half mile farther 
on, where an arm of the swamp ran off to the 
eastward, he suddenly saw the camp and the log 
pond before him. He sat motionless in the bateau 
and looked the place over in detail. It was much 
as it had been when he saw it before except that 
there were more logs in the pond. Only one man 
was in sight. He was working up at the other 
end of the pond building a section of a raft. 

Scott watched this man thoughtfully for some 
time. He bored a hole through the end of a four- 
inch pole with a large augur and also bored an- 
other hole near the end of one of the logs. Then 
he drove a wooden peg through the hole in the 
pole and into the hole in the log. He repeated 
this operation at the other end of the pole with 
another log. Then he fastened the other ends of 
these two logs together in the same way. That 
made the framework for his raft. With a long 
pike pole he herded some other logs over to this 
frame. By pressing down on the pole he made 
54 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


the logs one by one duck under the crosspole and 
take their places between the two outer logs. 
When the space was filled this section of the raft 
was completed. He then proceeded to build an- 
other just like it. A number of these sections 
would be chained together end to end and the 
long, snakelike raft would be ready for its trip 
down the river. 

Where in thunder did you spend the night?’' 

The voice was so close to him and so unex- 
pected that Scott almost upset the cranky little 
bateau. Then he recognized a face staring at him 
out of a clump of bushes close beside the boat 
and realized that he was near the stump where he 
had seen Murphy perched on their former trip. 

"^Hello,” Scott answered somewhat uncertainly 
when he had sufficiently recovered from his sur- 
prise. He was chagrined to think that he had 
not se.en Murphy before. ‘‘Been there ever since 
we left?” 

The man at the other end of the pond was too 
far ofif to hear their voices, but Murphy was 
afraid their conversation might reveal his hiding 
place. “Back up out of sight,” he said, “and Fll 
join you.” 


55 


SCOTT BURTON 


Scott retreated out of sight of the pond and 
Murphy soon joined him in a tiny bateau. 

‘‘No/' Murphy said in answer to Scott's ques- 
tion, “I have not been there ever since you left, 
but I spent the night there. Where were you last 
night?" he repeated. He seemed to be excited. 

“How do you know that I was not at home?" 
Scott asked suspiciously. 

“You'd be some paddler if you got up here this 
time of morning," Murphy laughed. 

Scott had not thought of that. “I camped 
down there in the woods a couple of miles, near 
the edge of the swamp." 

“Did you hear the creaking of a chain about 
nine o'clock ?" Murphy asked with suppressed ex- 
citement. 

“I thought I did," Scott replied cautiously. 

“So did I," Murphy exclaimed emphatically. 
“It was rather faint but it could not have been 
anything else. There was something doing out 
there in that swamp somewhere. I took a sneak 
out that way, but could not find anything." 

There was no doubting Murphy's sincerity. 
He was fairly quivering with excitement. His 
knowledge of the country and his familiarity with 

56 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

the ways of the loggers would be of great help 
and Scott threw his suspicions to the winds. 
Moreover, he wanted somebody with whom he 
could talk. ‘T heard it the night before, too,’’ he 
confided. 

‘‘Did you?” Murphy exclaimed eagerly. ‘T 
was not here that night. What are you going to 
do now?” 

Scott explained what he had already done and 
suggested that Murphy join him in completing 
the examination of the rest of the shore line. 
Murphy was more than willing. 

‘‘They seem to be getting a raft ready to send 
out now,” Scott said. “Do you know when they 
will start with it?” 

“Usually start about the time the tide turns 
out. That will mean about five o’clock this after- 
noon.” 

“Have you any grub?” Scott asked. 

“No, but I can get some pretty quick. Ought 
to go to the cabin before I go off anywhere any- 
way.” 

“All right. I’ll go up with you. Then we’ll 
make the rounds of the river bank and wait down 
there to see that raft go by.” 

57 


SCOTT BURTON 


They landed well out of sight of the logging 
camp and struck olf through the woods for Mur- 
phy’s ranger cabin. 


CHAPTER VII 


M urphy had a very attractive little 
cabin back there in the woods and a 
little wife who looked perfectly ca- 
pable of running things while he was away, and 
while he was home, too, if necessary. She did 
not seem in the least alarmed at the prospect of 
being alone for possibly two or three days. Mur- 
phy tossed the necessary supplies into his pack 
sack and they were soon on their way back to the 
bateau. They loaded all the duffle into Scott’s 
boat and Murphy took the bow paddle. 

It seemed that the log pond was a natural, 
bottle-shaped arm of the big swamp. From the 
mouth of it to the river a quarter of a mile away 
a channel had been cleared of all brush and cy- 
press knees which might interfere with the pas- 
sage of the log rafts, but there were no booms 
or anything else to separate it from the rest of 
the swamp. 

‘They pole the rafts out that channel to the 

59 


SCOTT BURTON 


river/’ Murphy explained, ‘‘and let them drift 
with the tide and the current the rest of the way.” 

“I should think they would be hung up on the 
banks all the time,” Scott objected. 

“Oh, they don’t turn them loose. There are 
always two men on them. There is a long sweep 
on each end of the raft, and by means of those 
they can usually keep in the channel and make 
the bends all right. Of course they have to tie 
up when the tide comes in and wait till she turns 
again. It is an ideal lazy man’s job, and these 
niggers love it.” 

The north shore of the’swamp swung consider- 
ably farther to the north and they were at least 
two miles above the channel when they came out 
on the river. In all that distance they had seen 
nothing but animal trails similar to the ones which 
Scott had found lower down. Murphy was able 
to explain many of the tracks which had puz- 
zled him. 

The hardwood strip was wider here and they 
landed to explore it. It was a quarter of a mile 
across to the river, but a coon trail was the only 
sign of life which they discovered. 

“Well,” Scott said, “it may not help us any 
6o 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

but we have the satisfaction of knowing that 
nothing goes into or comes out of that swamp ex- 
cept at the logging camp or by way of the river.” 
He had not been looking for anything in particu- 
lar and did not know exactly whether he felt dis- 
appointed or relieved at not finding it. They 
knew now where they did not have to look for 
the thieves and that would help. 

They returned to the boat and continued to 
examine the shore down to the log channel. The 
strip of dry land was only about four rods wide 
at this point. The channel was not a natural 
opening like the two which Scott had found be- 
low. It had been dug out and showed very clearly 
the signs of much use. The banks had been 
gouged out by the passing rafts, and tramped by 
many feet. They searched the ground for some 
distance on either side but could not find any- 
thing to show that the men who had made the 
tracks had ever done more than step ashore to 
help shove the rafts through the channel. 

It was getting rather late in the afternoon but 
they thought they would have time to paddle 
downstream to see how many openings there were 
into the river and get back in time to see the 

6i 


SCOTT BURTON 


raft come out. As the tide was coming in they 
stayed in the swamp. It is very often some little 
thing like this which changes the whole course of 
events. If they had only gone down the river. 
But they did not. 

They did not examine the shore here with the 
same care. It did not occur to them that there 
could be anything there of particular interest. 
About a mile brought them to the first one. It 
was much broader and deeper than the one Scott 
had found in the morning, but was so overhung 
with trees and brush that it would not be readily 
noticed from the river. A rather hurried exami- 
nation did not reveal any traces of use. They 
did not know how much farther down they would 
have to go and were anxious to get back before 
the raft went out. Another mile brought them 
to another opening. 

‘‘That settles that part of it !” Scott exclaimed. 
“This is where I went in this morning. There is 
only one more opening below this, and that is 
down at the lower end of the swamp. I have 
been all the way around her now. There are just 
these four channels into the river.” 

“And two of them,” Murphy said, “are new 
62 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

ones on me. I have been down that river dozens 
of times. Funny I never noticed them.’' 

‘‘They are pretty well screened from the river,” 
Scott replied. “Don’t look as though either of 
them had ever been used.” 

Without further search they paddled back for 
the log channel so that they would not be in the 
way of the raftsmen, and had just time enough to 
pick a good hiding place before it was dark. The 
sky was clear and from where they sat they could 
see the river and the mouth of the log canal 
plainly. A fire was out of the question and they 
ate their cold supper in silence. 

Scott was getting used to this night gloom in 
the big swamp now. It did not seem as weird as 
it had before, possibly because he was not alone, 
but there was a certain fascination about it which 
kept his interest on edge. The monotonous 
splashing of the drooping branches dipping in the 
current seemed to take on a certain musical 
rhythm. The booming of the bull bats as they 
dropped down into the opening over the river and 
the honking of the lonely night heron fitted in 
like the solo parts in an orchestra. Suddenly 
there was a shriek which made Scott’s blood run 

63 


SCOTT BURTON 

cold. It certainly could not have been written 
in the music. 

‘What in thunder was that ?” he whispered ex- 
citedly, and then joined in the silent laugh with 
Murphy. Even before he had finished speaking 
he had recognized the hunting cry of the great 
barred owl. There is no more blood-curdling 
sound, and coming as it did on tensely listening 
nerves it had raised the hair on both their heads. 

“That is enough to make every mouse and 
small bird in the woods die of heart failure,’’ Scott 
whispered. 

“Probably what he does it for,” Murphy whis- 
pered back. “A little more and he’d got me, too.” 

It was not till about eleven o’clock that they 
heard the sound of voices floating faintly toward 
them from the direction of the pond. After a 
long silence they heard them again much nearer, 
and soon the splash of the poles trailing through 
the water was distinctly audible. The blow of a 
hammer and the clank of a chain caused Scott to 
look at Murphy inquiringly. 

“They have to break up the raft to get it out 
into the current,” Murphy whispered. 

After considerable delay and splashing three 

64 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

sections of the raft shot out of the canal and 
swung downstream as they were caught by the 
current. They were tied to a tree by a rope and 
swung back against the near shore. After an- 
other delay and more splashing another three 
sections appeared and settled neatly in behind the 
others. Two men came quickly out of the shadow 
on to the raft and chained the two parts securely 
together. They disappeared to untie the mooring 
ropes, appeared again quickly to man the sweeps 
and slowly worked the raft out into midstream as 
it glided down the silent current. It seemed like 
a ghost raft on the river Styx. 

The two men in the brush watched intently as 
the raft glided by. No sooner were they out of 
hearing than Murphy turned excitedly. ‘Those 
were white men on that raft,” he whispered. 
‘The light was too uncertain to make them out, 
but they were white men and one of them looked 
like Qualley.” 

‘The fellow in the bow looked to me something 
like that superintendent at the turpentine camp,” 
Scott said doubtfully, “but I may have been mis- 
taken. I have never seen him but once.” 

65 


SCOTT BURTON 


“Yes, sir, that's exactly who it was. Now 
what do you suppose he is doing over here ?" 

Before Scott could answer they both heard 
quite distinctly that clanking of a chain which 
had come to them the night before from some- 
where out there in the swamp. It was much 
plainer than it had been before and seemed 
nearer. They listened intently for a few minutes 
but heard nothing more. 

“Let's take a sneak out that way," Murphy sug- 
gested eagerly. 

Scott nodded and they scrambled silently across 
the neck of land to the boat in the swamp. “Don't 
make any noise," Scott cautioned. “We do not 
want them to know that we are on the lookout 
any sooner than we can help." 

The moon had not yet come up and it was so 
dark back there in the swamp that they made slow 
progress. Every few minutes they stopped to lis- 
ten. Once or twice they thought they heard a 
faint splashing, but sounds are very hard to lo- 
cate in such a place. After more than an hour 
of fruitless search they gave it up. 

“Now, what?" Murphy whispered as they sat 
disconsolate in the middle of the swamp. 

66 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘‘How far is it down to the place where they sell 
those logs?” Scott asked thoughtfully. 

“About fifteen miles.” 

“Will they make it with that raft to-night?” 

“No, they tie up during the flood tide, you 
know, and they had already lost a couple of hours 
of the ebb when they started. They will not get 
more than half way.” 

“Let's follow them,” Scott suggested. “I don't 
suppose we shall see anything, but I would like 
to talk to those people at the mill.” 

Murphy agreed and they were soon threading 
their way through the cypress knees back to the 
log canal. They reached there just too late to see 
another bateau disappear up the channel toward 
the camp. They glided out into the river and 
paddled silently with the current. As they did 
not know where they might run on to the raft 
they approached all the bends cautiously. 

“The tide will be turning pretty quick now,” 
Murphy whispered. “When it does they will tie 
up, and when they tie up they will go to sleep. 
That will give us a chance to get around them.” 

Some distance farther down they were sneak- 
ing cautiously around a bend when Murphy held 

67 


SCOTT BURTON 


up his hand in warning and Scott brought the 
bateau to a stop. Not fifty yards away they could 
see the shadowy outline of the raft lying close in 
under the shadow of the trees. There was a small 
fire burning at the far end of it and they could 
see two forms flitting about in the flickering light. 
They had evidently just arrived and were busy 
making the raft fast to the shore. 

The amateur detectives pushed their bateau 
well in under the shadow of the brush-covered 
bank and settled down to watch. They did not 
have long to wait. The men soon completed their 
preparations and settled down beside the fire. 
The low sound of voices soon gave place to silence 
which was in time broken by a long whistling 
snore. 

“That is accommodating of that fellow/’ Scott 
whispered. “If it were not for his music we 
might have sat here for an hour trying to find 
out whether he was asleep. Shall we make a 
sneak for it?” 

“Better wait a few minutes,” Murphy sug- 
gested, “till we can make sure of the other fel- 
low.” 


68 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

The other man was either awake or he did not 
snore. They listened in vain for ten minutes and 
decided to take a chance on it. 

“Think we better try to steal by under the 
shadow of the opposite shore ?” Scott asked. 

“Not for mine/’ Murphy answered, “the fellow 
might be awake and mistake us for a deer. I’d 
rather take a chance on floating right down the 
middle of the stream.” 

Scott thought the suggestion a good one. He 
had seen one of those men shoot and he did not 
feel like playing deer for him. The moon was 
just coming up and would make them uncom- 
fortably conspicuous, but there was nothing else 
to do unless they wanted to wait there all night. 
A single shove sent the bateau out from the shore 
and it floated very slowly down the stream. The 
tide was just on the turn and it seemed that they 
would never get by that raft. At last they were 
out of sight around a bend in the river. They 
paddled silently for a few minutes. Then Scott’s 
excitement broke all bounds. 

“Did you notice anything peculiar about that 
raft?” he whispered eagerly. 

69 


SCOTT BURTON 


Murphy shook his head. 

‘'There were eight sections in it.” 

“No,” Murphy exclaimed incredulously. 

“Yes, sir, I thought it was a mile long from the 
length of time it took us to get by and I counted 
the sections. There were eight.” 

“Where in thunder did they pick up the other 
two?” 

Neither of them had any answer for that and 
they paddled on, thoughtfully silent. It was pos- 
sible that the raft had broken the night before 
and they were picking up the pieces. There was 
not much chance now of finding out where they 
got it. The next best thing would be to see how 
they got rid of it. 

“WhaCs the matter with our getting some 
sleep?” Murphy asked. “We can go ashore till 
the tide turns. They can’t start before that and 
we can easily beat it out ahead of them.” 

There did not seem to be any good reason why 
they should not and they turned in to the first 
high land they saw. They built a fire and made 
the coffee they could not have at supper. The 
night had turned cold enough for them to get 
pretty well chilled while they were watching the 
70 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

raftsmen go to sleep. The fire and the coffee 
soon warmed them up. They hauled their blan- 
kets out of the boat and were soon asleep beside 
the little fire. 


CHAPTER VIII 


M urphy had figured that the tide 
would turn again at about six o’clock 
in the morning. By five he was up 
getting breakfast. Scott soon joined him. There 
was a cold fog hanging over the river and they 
crowded close around the fire. The temperature 
was not conducive to conversation. It was not 
till the heat of the fire had thawed them out a 
little that Murphy broke the silence. 

‘‘Are you dead sure that there were eight sec- 
tions in that raft?” he asked. It was the second 
time that Scott’s observation had proved better 
than his own and it piqued him a little. The 
power of observation is one of the woodman’s 
most valuable faculties. 

“I sure am,” Scott replied, “I counted them 
twice.” 

“Do you suppose those fellows are selling those 
logs to the mill on a separate account ?” 

“That is what I want to find out if I can. I 
-72 


SCOTT BURTON 


thought it would be interesting to see how they 
handle the thing when they come in with the 
raft/’ 

Murphy chuckled. ‘Tt will be good sport to 
stand there and see them sell those logs which 
they have been to so much trouble to steal for 
the credit of the company/’ 

They were in high spirits and sent the bateau 
skimming down the river at a tremendous rate. 
It was not yet nine o’clock when they landed at 
the mill dock. They knew that the raft could not 
get in before ten or eleven. It was the first south- 
ern mill Scott had ever seen, with its great open 
pile of ever-burning sawdust and slabs blazing 
away as though to invite the destruction of the 
mill by fire. The upper part of the mill was 
built like a summer house, with open sides. In- 
stead of the little short logs he had seen in the 
north the big band saw was ripping up logs forty 
and even sixty feet long. 

The manager saw them and came over for a 
chat. He knew Murphy and greeted Scott cor- 
dially. ‘‘Still looking for the timber thieves?” 
he asked pleasantly. 

“Still at it,” Murphy admitted. 

73 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘1 suppose you get a great many logs in here 
from all up and down the river?’' Scott asked. 

‘‘No/’ the manager answered, “not now. We 
used to buy in small lots from many owners, but 
that was before Qualley started up there. We 
had quite a supply on hand when he started and 
he is getting the stuff down to us now just about 
fast enough to keep us going. We only cut about 
forty thousand feet a day. I am not sure, but I 
do not believe that we have bought a log from 
any one else for almost a year.” 

“Are there any other mills on the river ?” Scott 
asked. 

“No, this is the only one down this way. There 
may be some more up the river, but if there are 
they are a long way up.” 

Just then a big doubledeck river steamer with 
her tall smokestacks and queer-looking stern pad- 
dle wheel went by spanking her way up against 
the current. 

“Don’t suppose one of those things would tow 
a raft up the river?” Scott suggested. 

“Too slow for them. They are slow enough 
any way and a raft tow would cost her more than 
the logs are worth.” 


74 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


‘T don’t see what good it would do any one 
to steal logs here, then,” Scott said. 'What could 
they do with them when they get them ?” 

"That’s what Murphy has been trying to find 
out for a couple of years,” the manager laughed. 
"He thought for a while that I was buying stolen 
property here, but he has never been able to prove 
it on me. Like to look over the mill, Mr. Bur- 
ton?” 

Scott was glad of the opportunity to keep in 
touch with the manager till the rafts came in, 
and eagerly accepted the invitation. They fol- 
lowed the manager through the strange mill 
which looked so much like a summer house to 
Scott with its open sides and elevated tramways 
leading out to the lumber yard. He watched the 
long logs come dripping up the jack chain on to 
the log deck, saw the powerful steam nigger toss 
the great trunks on to the long saw carriage as 
though they had been so many toothpicks and 
listened to the shriek of the big band saw as it 
tore through the screaming log. The explosive 
exhaust of the shotgun feed as the newly sawed 
plank fell away from the cant had always sounded 
to Scott like a shout of triumph. In five minutes 
75 


SCOTT BURTON 


that shining ribbon of steel had slashed up the 
growth of three or four centuries. Perhaps La 
Salle had marched beneath the branches of that 
very tree. 

It was fascinating to watch the perfect work- 
ing of those powerful machines, and Scott never 
tired of it, but he was watching to-day with only 
one eye, the other was on the bend of the river 
above the mill. They followed the lumber clear 
through the sorting shed and even out to the piles 
in the lumber yard; they examined the dry kiln 
and watched the noisy flooring machines in the 
planing mill, and even then the raft had not ar- 
rived. Scott glanced questioningly at Murphy. 
What could be delaying them so long? 

It was almost noon before the nose of the tardy 
raft poked around the distant bend in the river. 
They were sitting in the office talking as usual of 
the mystery of the stolen logs. Scott was so glad 
to see the rafts that he felt like shouting, but he 
wanted to see what the manager would do. Pos- 
sibly it would be a little embarrassing for him to 
have visitors from the National Forest at his el- 
bow when the raft came in. But if Scott ex- 
pected any such thing he was disappointed. 

76 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


‘‘Here come some of your runaways now/’ the 
manager remarked with a smile when he caught 
sight of the raft. “Let’s go down and see what 
they’ve got.” 

The raft was still quite a distance up the river 
and well out in the middle of the stream, but they 
could see the men working steadily at the great 
sweeps edging the clumsy craft over toward the 
opening in the upper end of the log boom. They 
made their way out along the double boom to have 
a look at the logs and to get within speaking dis- 
tance of the men. 

“By George,” Murphy whispered excitedly to 
Scott, “those are niggers on that raft now.” 

Scott paused to get a better look at the men and 
uttered a suppressed exclamation. He grasped 
Murphy’s arm. “Look there,” he whispered, 
“there are only six sections.” 

“I thought you were dreaming last night,” 
Murphy retorted. “Been hanging around the 
swamp too much at night.” 

“Not on your life,” Scott exclaimed decisively. 
“I’d bet my last cent that there were eight sections 
in that raft last night when we passed it.” 

Murphy smiled incredulously. 

. 77 


SCOTT BURTON 

‘‘Sort of late to-day,” the manager called to. 
the darkies on the raft. 

“Yas, suh,” one of the darkies answered with 
the usual grin, “we wuz kinda late ketchin’ de 
tide dis mahnin’.” 

“How much did you bring me this time, 
George ?” the manager asked. 

“Ah don’t know, suh, but Use got some writin’ 
heah fo’ you from Mistah Qualley.” 

The raft had floated down against the boom 
and the darky addressed as “George” handed 
over a scale bill. The manager glanced at it and 
offered it to Scott. “Want to check them up?” 

Scott looked at it rather doubtfully. The log 
sizes in that country were all so different from 
what he was used to that he knew that he could 
not even estimate the contents of the logs very 
accurately. He thought that the best thing to do 
was to admit it. 

“You know more about this than I do,” he said, 
passing the paper on to Murphy. 

Murphy glanced at the totals and walked 
slowly over the raft examining the ends of the 
logs. “Nobody would get rich on the difference 
any way,” he remarked when he had finished. 

78 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘Where did you tie up for the night?’’ Scott 
asked. 

George seemed to hesitate for a moment. 
Scott thought that he started to say something 
and then changed his mind. “About seben miles 
up de ribber,” he finally answered. 

“Do you always tie up at the same place ?’’ 

“Can’t always make it, Cap’n,” the darky 
grinned. “De tide, she say whar to tie up.” 

“Have much trouble getting your raft out 
through the swamp last night?” 

The darky rolled his eyes a little suspiciously. 
“No, boss, she come through mighty slick.” 

Scott saw now that the darky was lying fluently 
and knew that there was no chance to get any 
more truth out of him, if, indeed, they had gotten 
any at all. 

“Well, Mr. Brown,” he said, speaking loud 
enough for the darkies to hear, “I guess the scale 
is all right. We thought maybe they were slip- 
ping some extras into the rafts, but we seem to 
have been mistaken. I hope you will pardon me 
for suspecting you, but it is my business right 
now to suspect every one.” 

“Suspect all you please,” Mr. Brown laughed, 

79 


SCOTT BURTON 


^‘but let’s go down to dinner. I wish I were get- 
ting those logs. They do not bring me any too 
many and I have very few on reserve in the 
pond.” 

They accepted Mr. Brown’s invitation to din- 
ner but started up river immediately afterwards. 

“Now we’ll see what became of those two extra 
sections,” Scott said with determination as they 
lost sight of the mill. 

Murphy did not answer. He had not seen those 
extra sections himself and he was not altogether 
convinced that Scott had seen them either. Scott 
knew how Murphy felt about it and that made 
him all the more determined to find them and 
prove that he was right. 

, For a long time they paddled in silence. They 
kept a sharp lookout on both sides and investi- 
gated everything which looked like a possible 
opening in the low-lying banks. They had not 
found anything when they turned the bend into 
the stretch of the river where the raft had been 
tied up for the night. 

There was nothing there. “Must have sunk,” 
Murphy chuckled. 

Scott did not deign to answer. He was a good 
8o 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


deal more puzzled than Murphy because he was 
sure that he had seen them the night before. He 
directed the bateau over to the place where the 
raft had been tied. There was plenty of evidence 
there to show that the rafts had been tied there 
many times before, but there were certainly no 
sections there now. Two sections of raft, each 
forty feet long, are not easily hidden. 

"T wonder if that steamer could have picked 
them up?” he asked gloomily. 

“Not likely to,” Murphy grinned. “Those logs 
will weigh from six to eight tons apiece.” 

Scott was absorbed in his own puzzled thoughts 
and had lost interest for the time being in his 
surroundings. 

“Hello, there !” Murphy exclaimed excitedly as 
they passed the place where the rear of the raft 
had been tied. 

Scott was instantly alert. Behind the tangle of 
brush and vines which hung clear down to the 
surface of the water he could see what looked 
like an opening in the swampy shore line. He 
immediately turned the bateau toward it and they 
forced their way under the heavy screen of vege- 
tation. 


8i 


SCOTT BURTON 

They both uttered an exclamation of surprise. 
They were in what appeared to be the mouth of 
a bayou about thirty feet wide. The sides of it 
were swampy and a bend about a hundred feet 
ahead shut in the view. They paddled silently 
up the creek with the feeling of a couple of blood- 
hounds on a hot scent. 

"‘Holy St. Christopher Murphy exclaimed ex- 
citedly as the bow of the bateau poked around 
the bend. 

Scott could hardly wait to see the cause of the 
excitement, but even when he did see it he did 
not grasp the full significance of it at once. In- 
stead of the sleepy, vine-covered bayou which 
they had so nearly passed by unnoticed — a place 
so wild that Scott's imagination had once more 
jumped back to the old explorers pushing their 
way into unknown channels which no white man 
had ever seen before — the bayou stretched out 
before them like a modern canal. All the border-i 
ing brush and overhanging vines had been cleared' 
away. A deep-worn tow path followed close 
along the northern bank. The shores were deeply 
gouged and torn as if by the passage of many 
82 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

rafts of logs. Moreover, many of the signs were 
very fresh. 

Scott gazed at it in wide-eyed amazement. 
“Maybe you were right about that raft having 
eight sections,*’ Murphy mumbled. “Looks as 
though it might have had eight hundred of them.” 


CHAPTER IX 


F or a few minutes the men sat in wonder- 
ing silence. The very boldness of the 
scheme was astounding. Here was a 
canal carefully and thoroughly prepared for the 
sole purpose of transporting stolen logs and not 
more than a hundred feet from the river where 
steamboats plied up and down and the rightful 
owner of the logs passed frequently. 

“Some nerve!’’ Murphy finally exclaimed, ex- 
pressing the thought which was uppermost in 
both their minds. 

“Well, weVe found where they go,” Scott re- 
marked with a sigh of satisfaction, “but what do 
you suppose they do with them? Is there any 
railroad over that way or any other stream to the 
coast?” 

Murphy shook his head. “Not a trace of one 
unless they have a secret one like this canal.” 

“I suppose there is no telling how far this 
goes,” Scott mused, “but I have a hunch that we 

84 


SCOTT BURTON 


better tackle it a little carefully. Any man with 
the nerve to steal logs the way this fellow is steal- 
ing them probably would not hesitate at anything. 
I doubt if he would welcome a visit from a couple 
of forest service uniforms.” 

Murphy felt for his holster and seemed com- 
forted at finding it where it belonged. His Irish 
was rising fast at the prospect of a possible fight. 

“Suppose we paddle slowly up the bayou,” 
Scott suggested, “and keep our eyes open. They 
have been undisturbed so long that I doubt if 
they keep any kind of guard and we ought to be 
able to see them before they see us.” 

That plan suited Murphy perfectly. He laid 
his automatic on the bow of the bateau where it 
would be handy and paddled ahead. They went 
very slowly, sneaking cautiously up to every bend 
and stopping frequently to listen. They had cov- 
ered at least a mile in this way without seeing any 
signs which looked suspicious or anything to indi- 
cate that they were getting any closer to their 
destination. Not a sound broke the afternoon 
stillness of the forest. 

“Must be selling those logs in Mobile,” Murphy 
grumbled. 


85 


SCOTT BURTON 


As they poked the bow of the bateau slowly 
around the next bend there was a tremendous 
splashing in the water ahead. Murphy snatched 
up his pistol and Scott whisked the bateau back 
under the protection of the bank with all his 
strength. They both looked rather foolish when 
a bunch of ducks rose noisily honking and finally 
made it out over the treetops some distance ahead 
of them. 

“They were pretty nearly as badly scared as 
we were, anyway,’’ Murphy growled as he re- 
sumed his paddle. 

Scott estimated that they had come at least 
four miles from the river and still there was no 
sign of logs or life. “Think we’ll have provisions 
enough to last us on this trip ?” he asked. 

The canal had cleared the river swamp now 
and lay in a narrow strip of baygall between 
ridges of pine forest which had been neither 
logged nor turpentined. They still talked with 
hushed voices though they were apparently miles 
from anywhere. 

“I wonder if this neck connects with the big 
swamp over west?” Murphy said. “I have heard 
about that swamp but have never been there. 

86 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

They say it is a whale of a big one and runs down 
within a very few miles of the coast/’ 

‘‘Shouldn’t wonder,” Scott growled as they 
paddled slowly along. “Seems as though it might 
connect with the Pacific Coast. Pity Columbus 
didn’t find it.” 

It was getting late in the afternoon when they 
paused at a bend in the bayou to listen for the 
hundredth time. They straightened up suddenly 
and looked inquiringly at each other.' The faint 
but unmistakable whine of a sawmill sounded 
plaintively from somewhere far ahead of them. 
The light of triumph was in their eyes now, but 
they were too excited to talk. Without a word 
they both bent to their work and paddled eagerly 
forward. The country on either side was more 
open now, and there was less chance of their 
running into any one unexpectedly. Every time 
they stopped to listen the whine of the saw was 
more distinct. It seemed too good to be true and 
they had to listen often to assure themselves that 
they were not dreaming. 

At last they could see the smoke through the 
trees and finally reached a point where they could 
make out the hazy outlines of the camp. It was 

87 


SCOTT BURTON 

the crudest kind of an outfit. A small portable 
mill sat out in the open without the protection of 
even so much as a shed-roof, and scattered about 
it were three miserable cabins — ^mere board 
shacks. Only one little pile of lumber was in 
sight. They sat for a few minutes and gazed at 
it in silence. 

“Well,’’ Scott remarked, “there she is. The 
next question is, how are we going to get close 
enough to identify our lumber without getting 
shot?” 

Murphy’s Irish blood was boiling. He had 
been looking for those timber thieves for two 
years, and now that they were in sight he was 
for stalking in on them and arresting them. 

“Rush ’em!” he exclaimed angrily. “Rush 
right in on them. Take them by surprise and we 
can arrest the whole outfit easy.” 

“It might be possible, all right,” Scott replied, 
weighing the possibilities, “but it seems to me 
doubtful. We have only one gun. There are 
six of those fellows in sight and probably more 
in the cabins. If they were all in one bunch we 
might stand a show, but while we were covering 
88 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

the ones there at the mill it would be a cinch for 
any one in the cabin to pot us.” 

Murphy had to admit the truth of that, but he 
was in favor of trying it anyway. ‘‘What are 
you going to do then?” he asked peevishly when 
Scott shook his head in disapproval of the scheme. 
“Not going to run home and let them get away?” 

“No reason why they should run away when 
they do not know that we have found them. But 
I was not thinking of running away. My plan 
is to reconnoiter the place as closely as we can, 
find out how many men there are here, identify 
our logs, and possibly close in on them at night. 
We haven’t any warrant for them, and probably 
they are not the fellows who are stealing the 
stufiF. They are only hired men and if we arrest 
them the real thieves who are engineering the 
job at a safe distance may get wind of it and 
get away. No, I think we better just hang around 
here and keep out of sight till we can find out 
who is running this outfit. Then we can nail him 
and we’ll have something worth while.” 

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Murphy admitted, 
cooling off a little. “It would be too bad to lose 
the main guy after all. Best thing we can do is 

89 


SCOTT BURTON 

to take to the brush here and wait till dark. Can’t 
be over half an hour now.” 

They tore their eyes from the mill and turned 
to examine the near-by brush for a good hiding 
place. ‘‘There is a good thick clump over there,” 
Scott said, pointing to a clump a little way ahead 
of them, “where we can hide the bateau and our- 
selves, too. It’s ” 

The words died on his lips and his eyes almost 
popped out of his head. In that very clump of 
brush there were a pair of big eyes as round as 
his own and fixed full upon him. Blue, fright- 
ened eyes they were, and they no sooner found 
that they were observed than they disappeared 
like a flash. Scott shot the bateau forward to 
have a close look and was just in time to see a very 
small boy minus any clothes at all streaking it 
through the brush toward the camp as though his 
life depended on it — and he probably thought that 
it did. He had evidently been swimming in the 
bayou and had been cut off from his clothes by 
their approach. 

“Now we are in for it!” Scott exclaimed, as he 
pointed out the flying figure to Murphy. 

go 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘‘Where did he come from?*' Murphy asked^ 
frowning. 

“Out of that clump of brush right there in 
front of us. I just happened to see his eyes. It is 
a good thing we were talking in whispers or the 
little rascal would have overheard every word 
that we said.” 

“Probably heard every word of it anyway/^ 
Murphy growled. “Now they'll be down here to 
investigate. Shall we wait for them or go to 
meet them?'' The idea of retreating never so 
much as entered Murphy's head. 

Scott had other plans. “Maybe if we can get 
out of here without being seen or leaving any 
trace behind us, hide the bateau in one of these 
brush piles and hide ourselves they will not find 
us and will think that the kid was lying. He was 
not very large, you know, and they would not put 
much faith in his story.” 

The plan did not appeal to Murphy. He was 
getting mad again and wanted to fight. “What'll 
we gain by that? Why not stay here and scrap 
it out?” 

“Because we are trying to find out a little some- 
thing about this thing without being seen our- 

91 


SCOTT BURTON 


selves,” Scott retorted a little sharply. ‘'Stir them 
up now and the whole gang may get away before 
we can do an3rthing with them.” 

“ril bet I could stop two or three of them,” 
Murphy growled. 

“We'll land on that clump of grass there on 
the left where we will not leave any footprints 
and get the bateau out of the water,” Scott said 
firmly. 

Murphy obeyed in silence. It was easy to see 
that he did not approve, but he obeyed. Keeping 
the clump of brush in which the boy had been 
hiding between them and the camp, they landed 
on a bunch of roots and lifted the bateau bodily 
from the water. They made their way carefully 
to a large brush pile back some fifty feet from 
the edge of the bayou. There they carefully hid 
the boat and concealed themselves. “It will be 
dark in about ten minutes,” Scott whispered. “If 
they don't find us pretty quick they will not have 
much chance of seeing us.” 

“Dark don't bother one of those infernal 
hounds much,” Murphy grumbled. “They'll find 
us easy enough and pull us out of here like a 
couple of rats.” 


92 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

A lump popped up into Scott’s throat so hard 
that it almost choked him. The thought of the 
keen-nosed hounds with which almost every 
southern camp is infested had never occurred to 
him, but he tried to put a bold face on it. ‘‘Well, 
we’ll have to take a chance on that. We can fight 
if we have to, but we won’t unless we do.” 

He was conscious that Murphy was eyeing him 
curiously with a trace of contempt and he knew 
that he was being suspected of cowardice, but his 
judgment told him that his was the wiser plan 
and he stuck to it, hard as it was. 

They had not much more than covered up their 
tracks and settled down to watch developments 
when they saw a man riding leisurely from the 
direction of the camp. He was trying to look 
unconcerned, but he rode directly toward the 
clump of bushes where the boy had been hiding. 
They were both rejoiced to see that the almost 
inevitable hound was lacking so far, and they 
were not a little relieved that the rider was on 
the other side of the canal. He wore the usual 
overalls, cotton shirt and old felt hat, and was a 
total stranger to both of them. An old thirty- 
93 


SCOTT BURTON 

thirty Winchester was balanced carelessly across 
the horn of his saddle. 

He drew rein on the opposite side of the canal, 
glanced at the clothes which the boy had left, and 
ran his eye carefully along the banks in both di- 
rections as far as he could see. Evidently it had 
not occurred to him that the bateau might have 
been taken out of the water, for his examination 
was too rapid to take account of anything as in- 
conspicuous as footprints. Without any appar- 
ent suspicion he turned toward the river and rode 
rapidly away down the tow path and out of sight. 

‘‘If he keeps that gait up long it will be dark 
before he gets back,’’ Scott chuckled. 

Evidently the boy had been keeping pretty close 
watch on the man. The horseman had hardly 
disappeared from view when the boy came run- 
ning toward the canal. He moved more cau- 
tiously as he approached the clump of bushes and 
stopped to examine them minutely. Satisfied that 
there was nothing there he pounced on his clothes 
and proceeded to change them for the old pair of 
his father’s overalls which he had on. His curi- 
osity was not so easily satisfied as the man’s. He 
examined the shore foot by foot to see if the boat 
94 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


had landed, scanned the surrounding country sus- 
piciously every now and then, and once glanced 
curiously across at the brush pile which concealed 
the spies. Finally he, too, trailed away down the 
bank of the canal. 

Already the sun had begun to dip below the 
treetops on the horizon, but it seemed to Scott as 
though it must have stuck there. Instead of the 
sudden darkness which usually came with the 
setting of the sun in that country, the twilight 
held on and on. They both heaved a sigh of re- 
lief when the rim of the sun finally disappeared 
behind the trees and the dusk settled rapidly over 
the forest. 

‘‘What do you suppose they will think when 
they don’t find anything?” Murphy grinned. 

“Probably lick the kid for ‘seeing things’ and 
let it go at that,” Scott chuckled. 

“I hope he has a reputation already as a fluent 
liar. That would help some. Well, what is the 
big idea now?” 

They were still talking in whispers for they did 
not know how close the boy or some of the other 
searchers might be and voices carry far in the 
evening stillness of the forest. They could 
95 


SCOTT BURTON 


clearly hear the voices at the mill an eighth of a 
mile away. Scott had been thinking hard of his 
plan ever since they had crawled into their hiding 
place and was ready with his answer to Mur- 
phy’s question. 

“I think that we better stay here for a while 
till that fellow comes back home. Then he will 
not be so likely to run up on us from behind. 
When things have settled down over there we can 
scout around and see how they get the lumber 
out of this place, and, if possible, where they take 
it. They would not dare take it back out and 
down the river. Possibly we can even get close 
enough to some of those logs to see if they have 
your mark on them. Unless you can suggest 
some better plan.” 

Murphy did not have any objections to make. 
There was nothing in it which suggested running 
away, and there was some promise of excitement 
in putting it through. They sat for a while in 
silence listening for the return of the horseman 
and the boy. It was almost an hour before they 
heard voices on the tow path below. It was the 
man on horseback and the boy half walking and 
half trotting beside him. They caught enough of 
96 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


the conversation to reassure them. As the pair 
reached the place where the boy had been swim- 
ming the man’s voice asked jeeringly, ‘'Don’t see 
an elephant or a hippopotamus in them bushes 
now, do you ?” 

The boy was protesting vehemently with all the 
breath his rapid pace had left him. They were 
soon gone, but that little scrap of conversation 
was as good as a promise that they would go 
straight home and to bed. 

But they did not wait for them to go to bed. 
Scott was satisfied that there was no other search- 
ing party out and that no one would be sneaking 
up behind them. They heard the people laughing 
over at the camp and knew that the boy was be- 
ing teased about the horrible apparitions he had 


seen. 


CHAPTER X 


IT T ELL,” Scott whispered to Murphy, 

%/\/ ‘let’s get out of here and see what 
^ " we can find.” 

Murphy was ready enough to move and per- 
fectly willing to tackle the whole camp single- 
handed if necessary, but he was surprised that 
Scott did not want to wait till the camp was 
asleep, since he had already taken such precau- 
tions to avoid detection. “Think they have set- 
tled down yet?” he asked, as they crawled out of 
the brush. 

“No, but I thought we might cut a circle around 
here and maybe find out how they get the lumber 
out of here. We can sneak in and look over the 
mill and the logs later on if we get a chance.” 

They took a good look at the location of the 
pile of brush so that they would be able to locate 
it again, and started off through the woods to the 
southward. They moved cautiously so that they 
98 


SCOTT BURTON 


would not make any noise, and would be able to 
hear any one else who might be traveling the 
woods that night. The sky was clear and they 
could see fairly well. Before they had gone very 
far they sighted a road a short distance ahead. 
When they reached it they were very much sur- 
prised to find that it was a railroad. The rails 
were wooden ‘Two-by-fours’’ and the ties were 
slabs from the mill, but it was a railroad just the 
same. They stood and gazed at it a moment in 
silent wonder. 

“A railroad!” Murphy exclaimed softly. 
“You’ve got to admire their nerve whatever you 
may think of their honesty. Wouldn’t that beat 
you?” 

“Imagine building a railroad to haul oif stolen 
goods and getting away with it for over two 
years right here within a few miles of town.” 

“If they had built a steam railroad and a bigger 
mill no one would ever have found it,” Murphy 
growled sarcastically. “It’s always the little fel- 
lows who get caught. If they had just stolen a 
loaf of bread or a yeast cake they would have 
been caught long ago.” 

“Let’s follow it up and see where it goes,” 
99 


SCOTT BURTON / 

Scott suggested, turning down the track toward 
the south. 

They walked in silence for some time, ponder- 
ing over the gigantic scale on which this fraud 
was being conducted. There certainly must be 
some clever men at the bottom of it. They had 
covered about two miles when the moon peeped 
over the trees and they discovered a big swamp 
looming up ahead of them — a great black mass 
of dense undergrowth barring their way like a 
wall. 

‘‘Must have been some job to put this railroad 
through that swamp if it is anywhere near as big 
as it looks,’' Murphy remarked. “Jesse James 
was little more than a piker compared with this 
bunch.” 

The vegetation in the swamp was so dense that 
it seemed almost like going into a tunnel. Grad- 
ually their eyes became used to the darkness and 
they could see a little better. A small opening 
in the trees ahead let in the moonlight and Mur- 
phy started forward with an exclamation of as- 
tonishment. They were on a solid dirt 
embankment built up there three feet at least 


lOO 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

above the level of the swamp and ditched deep 
on either side. 

“No half-way measures for them!'' Scott ex- 
claimed. “They must have expected to keep this 
up for a good many years to make all this worth 
while." 

A sudden inspiration had come to Murphy. 
He was down in the ditch studying the sides of 
the old dirt embankment. After a careful ex- 
amination he started up with a grunt of satis- 
faction. 

“Now I know where I am !" he exclaimed, “or 
rather where I am going." 

Scott looked at him inquiringly. He had not 
seen anything which meant anything to him. He 
waited impatiently for an explanation. 

“These people did not build this embankment," 
Murphy explained. “It's as old as the hills. It 
is one of the first railroad embankments ever 
built in the United States if it is what I think 
it is." 

Scott smiled a little incredulously. He had 
never heard of a railroad in Florida at a very 
early date, especially in that part of it, and he 
thought that he knew his history pretty well. 


lOI 


SCOTT BURTON 


Murphy was too interested in what he had found 
to notice him. 

‘T have never seen the thing before but I have 
heard of it often. It ran from Weewahitchka 
up on the river to the town of St. Joseph down on 
the gulf. It was built with wooden rails just like 
this and the cars were pulled by niggers instead 
of an engine.” 

‘What was it for ?” Scott asked. 

“To get the cotton from the back country down 
to the coast.” 

“But why didn't they take it down through the 
river instead of hauling it down through this big 
swamp on this expensive fill?” 

“Because there was no deep water harbor at 
the mouth of the river and St. Joseph had one of 
the best harbors east of Pensacola.” 

“Never heard of it,” Scott retorted. It sounded 
like an improbable story, and he thought that 
Murphy must be trying to string him. 

“That may be, too. There isn't any town there 
now, but at one time it was the second largest 
cotton shipping port in the United States.” 

“Seems rather strange that it should have been 


102 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

so very important and then have disappeared so 
completely/’ Scott protested. 

“It was just about wiped out by cholera ana 
yellow fever in 1841. About that time the real 
railroads began hauling the cotton to other ports 
on the Atlantic coast and they never rebuilt the 
old town. They moved most of the frame houses 
away to other towns on the Gulf and the brick 
ones went to pieces.” 

“Sounds interesting,” Scott said, finally con- 
vinced that Murphy was at least trying to tell the 
truth about it. “Now I suppose they are hauling 
their lumber down over this same right-of-way 
and loading it on boats in that fine harbor.” 

“That’s my guess,” Murphy replied. “This 
old railroad embankment probably suggested it 
to them.” 

“Well, let’s follow it up and see for ourselves,” 
Scott suggested. 

They walked rapidly now, for there did not 
seem to be much chance of meeting any one out 
there in the swamp. Every now and then the 
cat owls back in the shadows of the moss-covered 
cypress trees burst forth into series of weird, un- 
earthly shrieks which made their blood run cold. 
103 


SCOTT BURTON 


It sounded to the boys as though two or three 
women were being murdered at once. 

‘‘Gee whiz !” Scott exclaimed, as he ducked vig- 
orously at an unusually explosive screech which 
seemed to come from directly overhead, “this 
would be a fine place for a fellow who believed in 
ghosts. I wonder whether they do their hauling 
at night or in the daytime 

“Probably in the daytime if they have nigger 
labor. They could never get a nigger into this 
swamp at night, and besides, there are not half 
a dozen people a year who ever come into this 
country. A deer hunter now and then; nobody 
else.” 

They had made their way through the swamp 
for about three miles when the darkness of the 
swamp gave way to the moonlight of an open 
pine ridge. It was quite a relief to come out of 
that gloom and they breathed more freely in 
the open. 

“WhaPs that?” Murphy exclaimed, suddenly 
crossing himself and pointing excitedly off into 
the forest. He was actually trembling. 

The sudden exclamation startled Scott. The 
cat owls had given him the jumps. He followed 
104 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

the direction of Murphy’s gesture and saw a tall 
white form apparently rising from the palmetto 
scrub a short distance to one side of the right-of- 
way. It was an uncanny sight and he shivered 
in spite of himself. 

“Let’s go see,” he whispered with a good deal 
more confidence than he really felt. They had 
been whispering again ever since they had en- 
tered the swamp. 

Murphy hesitated an instant, but followed him 
closely. They picked their way cautiously 
through the brush, making as little noise as pos- 
sible. They were within thirty yards of the hazy 
white form which seemed now to be sinking 
stealthily down into the scrub as they approached. 
Scott could not make it out. He heard the faint 
click of the safety lock on Murphy’s Luger. His 
attention was fixed so intently on the crouching 
figure that he forgot his feet. The next instant 
he stepped in a hole and fell sprawling. 

He jumped to his feet half expecting to find 
the mysterious figure ready to spring at his 
throat. It had not moved. He glanced at a stick 
he had picked up when he fell and dropped it in 
dismay. He stared at it horrified for an instant. 
lOS 


SCOTT BURTON 

It was a human bone. He relaxed with a nervous 
laugh. He saw that he had stepped into a grave, 
the brick top of which had fallen in and exposed 
its gruesome treasure. When he realized what 
it was he had no difficulty in recognizing the 
ghost as a tombstone. Its apparent movement 
was caused by the shadow of a palm leaf which 
was waving gently before it in the breeze. It was 
such a relief that he laughed aloud. 

He laid his hand on Murphy’s arm and was 
surprised to find him trembling violently. An- 
other screech from the cat owls started him pat- 
tering a prayer. Murphy was willing and ready 
to fight anything human at any time regardless of 
size or weight, but he was superstitious, and the 
combination of cat owls and graveyard had upset 
his nerves completely. 

Scott could not help but recall the contemptu- 
ous look which Murphy had given him back in 
the boat and he was strongly tempted to remind 
Murphy now that there was nothing there for a 
man to be afraid of, but he needed Murphy’s help 
and did not risk making him angry. However, 
he enjoyed the joke just the same when Murphy 
io6 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

growled, ‘‘Let's get out of here!" and beat an 
almost precipitous retreat to the railroad track. 

Just as they were about to step out on to the 
open track they stopped and stood as rigid as the 
trees about them — for a voice had called in im- 
patient tones from no great distance, “Hello, is 
that you. Bud ?" 


CHAPTER XI 


S COTT was thinking fast. He had to de- 
cide on a course of action and that quickly. 
Should they try to hide or should they meet 
this man and trust to his being a stranger? The 
voice was too close to give them much chance to 
hide and the owner of it was probably a good 
woodsman, thoroughly familiar with the country. 
On the other hand, this man could not have re- 
ceived any notice from the mill and would have 
no reason to suspect them. He decided to go 
ahead; he might learn something from this 
stranger. 

He stepped out into the track and walked slowly 
forward with Murphy at his elbow. They had 
not gone a dozen paces when they saw two men 
coming out of the woods on to the track only a 
short distance ahead of them. 

“Thought I heard you over there in the brush,” 
one of the men explained. “You were so late 
cornin’ that we started out to meet you.” 
io8 


SCOTT BURTON 


By this time the man was close enough to recog- 
nize his mistake even in that uncertain light. He 
stopped short and eyed them suspiciously. 

‘‘Thought you was some one else/^ he growled. 
“Where might you be from, stranger?” 

Scott evaded the question. “We did not know 
where we were when we ran on to this track. 
Where does it go?” 

“Where you all trying to get to ?” the man coun- 
tered. 

“Old St. Joseph town,” Scott said, remember- 
ing what Murphy had told him about the terminus 
of the railroad. 

The man still eyed him curiously. “Ain’t no 
town there now,” he said. 

“I know there isn’t,” Scott replied. “We just 
wanted to size up the harbor. Do you live here?” 

“Campin’ here,” the man said, “huntin’.” 

“This old railroad go there?” Scott asked. 

The man hesitated a moment. “Goes to where 
the town used to be,” he said reluctantly. 
“Reckon we’ll walk back with you. Man we were 
lookin’ fer don’t seem to be cornin’.” 

“Where was he coming from? I didn’t know 
anybody ever came out this way.” The other fel- 
109 


SCOTT BURTON 


low was asking so many questions that Scott felt 
justified in asking a good many himself. 

‘‘Been out huntin’/’ the man replied. “Good 
many deer out this way.” 

They moved forward and the two men moved 
with them. “What’s the railroad for in this wil- 
derness ?” Scott asked. 

Again the man hestiated so long that Scott 
thought he was not going to answer at all. He 
could hardly have helped hearing him. 

“Mill cuttin’ up the line haulin’ lumber down 
to the harbor,” he finally answered, as though he 
had weighed all the possibilities and decided to 
try the truth. 

“Must be a pretty big outfit to afford a railroad 
like this,” Scott continued. 

“Reckon it is,” the man replied after another 
pause. He was evidently giving careful thought 
to his answers. 

“Are they located on the river?” Scott asked. 

“No,” the man answered promptly, “they are 
nowhere near the river.” He did not seem to no- 
tice that he had practically denied any knowledge 
of the mill in his previous answer. Scott smiled 
to himself. 


no 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

They walked in silence for a few minutes. 
Scott knew they must recognize their Forest Ser- 
vice uniforms when they came to the camp fire, 
even if they had not already done so, and he was 
trying to think of some way of accounting for 
them without arousing suspicion. He finally hit 
upon a plan which he thought might work. 

‘‘We tried to get a boat over from Pensacola,’^ 
he said, “but could not find any. So we came over 
on the train and tried to make it cross country. 
There did not seem to be any direct way of get- 
ting- here.’^ He thought that he could see the 
man relax a little as though relieved by the in- 
formation. 

“Yonder is our camp fire,’’ the man said, with 
a shade of cordiality creeping into his voice. 
“Better come over and have a cup of coffee.” 

Scott knew that they were playing with fire, 
but he did not see any way out of it. They had 
neither tents nor provisions with them and were 
counting on getting back to the bateau and out 
of the country before morning. He decided to 
accept the invitation in the hope that he could 
think up later an excuse for getting away. 

“Thanks,” he said, “we’ll sit down for a min- 


III 


SCOTT BURTON 


ute anyway. Walking through this sand is pretty 
tiresome business.’’ 

The camp fire had burned pretty low but the 
man tossed on a few pieces of light wood and it 
immediately flared like a torch. Scott looked cu- 
riously around for the tent but there did not seem 
to be any. It did not seem reasonable that they 
should be camped there without some means of 
shelter in a country where rain might be expected 
any time. The gentle plashing of small waves 
told him that they were close to the beach of the 
harbor. Murphy and his companion had observed 
a complete silence. Each was afraid to talk for 
fear he would spoil the fairy tale which he knew 
his friend was building up. But Murphy had 
been using his eyes and he asked a question now 
to call Scott’s attention to something which he 
might not have seen. 

'What’s the light out there on the water?” 

Scott looked toward the sound of the lapping 
water and saw a light — ^the dim light of a lantern 
— ^bobbing gently up and down some distance 
away. He looked inquiringly at the stranger. 

"Schooner waiting for lumber, I reckon. She 


II2 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


dropped in there this afternoon/’ he answered 
carelessly. 

This gave Scott a new idea. He thought that 
it probably accounted for the men not having any 
tent. They had come in on the schooner and were 
expecting some one from the sawmill to meet 
them. It was not a pleasant discovery to make. 
He had thought that they had been lucky in meet- 
ing these men and getting so much information 
from them. Now he knew that it was little short 
of a calamity. Some one might drop in from the 
mill at any minute now with the story of the scare 
they had had up there that afternoon and it would 
not take them long to add two and two together. 
Their story about coming from Pensacola would 
be immediately discredited and they would be defi- 
nitely identified as officers from the National For- 
est. Not only that, but these fellows would know 
that they had seen the mill, had come up the canal 
from the river, and had learned of the source of 
the logs. It was only a question now of how far 
these men would go in their own defense and to 
protect their future business. From the looks 
of the men Scott thought they would stop at 
nothing. 

113 


SCOTT BURTON 


“Ought to make a pretty cheap operation for 
them/’ he remarked. He spoke as carelessly as he 
could, but he kept one ear turned toward the rail- 
road track and listened with all his might He 
accepted a cup of coffee and racked his brain 
while he drank for some excuse to get away from 
them, and yet he did not want to go till he had 
found out who the men were who were running 
that mill. He wanted a chance to talk to Murphy 
to see if he had recognized any one connected 
with it. He glanced out toward the light in the 
harbor and was surprised to find that it had dis- 
appeared. Then he noticed that a fog had come' 
in off the water while they had been sitting there 
and had shut from view everything more than, 
twenty feet away. Scott was rather pleased to 
see this, as it might give them a better chance to 
get away in case there was any necessity for it. 

The two men seemed to be content to leave 
things as they were. They seemed to want their 
guests to think that they were no longer suspi-, 
cious of them, but Scott noticed that they watched 
them very closely and seemed to be listening as 
intently as he for the approach of some one from 
114 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

the direction of the sawmill. Slowly another and 
unexpected sound worked its way into his con- 
sciousness. It came from the direction of the 
light he had seen in the harbor and was undoubt- 
edly the squeak of some rusty oarlocks. It had 
never occurred to him that there might be other 
men on board the schooner and that they might 
come ashore. The odds were piling up against 
them. He glanced at Murphy and saw that he, 
too, had heard it. 

If he could have caught Murphy’s eye just then 
he would have made a dash for it and trusted to 
the fog to get away. Even while he thought of 
it the boat grated on the beach. Possibly these 
men would go down to meet their friends. 

‘‘Ready to go out. Jack?” a voice called from 
the water’s edge. 

Neither of the men answered at once. Then 
the one who had been talking to Scott spoke up 
quietly: “Not yet, come on over to the fire.” 

Scott knew now that they were virtually pris- 
oners. These men intended to keep them right 
where they were till the messenger or whoever it 
was came from the mill and helped them to de- 
iiS 


SCOTT BURTON 

cide whether it was safe to turn them loose after 
what they had found out. He knew very well 
what the decision would be, but there was no way 
out of it now. They could fight about as well one 
time as another and he decided to stay and see 
what would happen. It would at least give them 
a chance to identify some one from the mill and 
possibly learn something more about this myste- 
rious crew. 

Murphy evidently thought that the time for 
action had arrived or was rapidly approaching. 
He kept Scott in the corner of his eye all the time 
now to catch any possible signal and toyed ab- 
sent-mindedly with the flap of his holster. The 
man beside him was watching his every motion 
with his own rifle resting conveniently across 
his knees and his fingers toying with the trigger 
guard. It was evidently a case of armed truce all 
around. 

They could hear the other men approaching 
through the wire grass and they soon stepped out 
into the firelight. There they stopped and gazed 
curiously at the unexpected guests. Then they 
looked inquiringly at the man called Jack. 
ii6 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

‘‘Couple of fellows from Pensacola,” he ex- 
plained, “who have come over here to inspect the 
harbor. They was lost up here on the right-of- 
way when we found 'em.” 

Scott nodded as pleasantly as he could in ac- 
knowledgment of the introduction, but Murphy 
only stared at them sullenly. The two newcom- 
ers took their places around the fire and they all 
sat in silence — ^waiting. The fog had thickened 
about them till they could see nothing outside the 
immediate circle of the firelight; the call of the 
cat owls still came to them faintly from the dis- 
tant swamp and the waves lapped on the beach 
with a melancholy monotony which was getting 
on Scott's nerves. He was beginning to wish 
that something would happen just to break the 
tension. 

Then it came( There was a crunching of heavy 
boots in the sand and a figure loomed suddenly 
up out of the fog close on them. He was evi- 
dently somewhat dazzled by the firelight and did 
not notice that there were strangers present. 

“Couldn't make it any sooner, boys,” he apol- 
ogized. “One of the cars got off the track and 
we had to unload the lumber to get back on, but 
117 


SCOTT BURTON 

they are started now and will be here before 
long/’ 

Scott had recognized him the instant he spoke 
as the superintendent of the turpentine camp. 


CHAPTER XII 


F or a minute which seemed like an hour 
Scott stared at Roberts with every nerve 
on edge and every muscle tense. He had 
not the least idea what would happen when they 
were recognized, but he felt pretty sure that some- 
thing would happen and he was prepared for any 
emergency. Murphy also was watching him 
keenly. He had not liked Scott’s caution in hid- 
ing up there at the camp or his failure to attack 
these two men when they first met them up on 
the railroad. He had recognized that they were 
virtually prisoners when these men had started 
to lead them back to their camp and he had wanted 
to fight then, but he had not wanted to cross 
Scott’s plans. Now he had decided that he would 
wait no longer. If he saw a good opportunity he 
was going to try to fight his way out. He did not 
expect to get very much help in that line from 
Scott. He recognized his ability in many things, 
119 


SCOTT BURTON 


but he did not consider that fighting was one of 
his accomplishments. 

In a moment Roberts’ eyes had become accus- 
tomed to the light and the next insttint he recog- 
nized Scott. His lip curled in a malicious sneer 
and his hand stole up toward the holster on his 
belt. He glanced from Scott to Murphy. 

‘'So the kid was right,” he snarled. “He said 
there were a couple of sneaks in the canal this 
afternoon and we all thought that he was dream- 
ing.” 

“Seems to me you are quite a ways from home 
yourself, Mr. Roberts,” Scott remarked quietly. 
He saw they were in for it now and he thought 
that he might as well anger Roberts to see what 
he would say. He also watched him keenly to see 
what he would do. He remembered the frog he 
had seen this man shoot at the turpentine camp 
and he did not want to give him too good an op- 
portunity to display his skill now. 

Roberts glared at him with a fierce hatred 
which he did not try to disguise. “Not so far 
away from home as you will go when you leave 
here,” he hissed. 

“You don’t seem to be as glad to see visitors 


120 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

here as you do at the turpentine camp,” Scott 
mocked. ‘Tt must have spoiled your temper to 
have to work so hard reloading that stolen lum- 
ber.” 

Murphy saw the blood surge through the swol- 
len veins of Roberts’ neck and saw his hand spring 
convulsively toward his automatic. He saw the 
time for action had come and gathered himself 
for a spring. 

But Scott was ahead of him. He had long ago 
prepared himself for just such a situation. He 
shot from the ground as though he had been sit- 
ting on a spring. Just as Roberts had drawn his 
revolver from its holster Scott struck him a tre- 
mendous blow on the point of the chin and 
knocked him sprawling. He had struck blows 
like that before and knew that there was no need 
to waste any more time on Roberts who would 
not be in a condition to do any damage for some 
time to come, so he turned his attention to the man 
beside him who had been doing all the talking 
before Roberts came. 

The attack on Roberts had been so sudden and 
unexpected that it had somewhat dazed the rest 
of the party. Murphy had been so astonished by 


I2I 


SCOTT BURTON 

Scott’s sudden action that he had lost a valuable 
instant and in that instant the man beside him 
had hurled himself upon him bearing him to the 
ground. 

‘‘Go for ’em, Murphy,” Scott shouted, as he 
turned to the second man who was scrambling to 
his feet with his rifle in his hand. But the man 
never had a chance to use the rifle. Just as he 
straightened up Scott caught him with an upper 
cut that sent him spinning. rifle fell at his 
feet. Scott saw the other two men of the crew 
rushing upon him. He waited till the last in- 
stant as though he was watching the man on the 
ground and then side-stepped the first of the two 
with the agility of a cat, tripped him as he went 
past and met the second one with a terrific blow 
between the eyes, and followed it with a right 
swing which felled him like an ox. The man 
Scott had tripped had picked himself up now and 
was returning to the fight with renewed fury. 

There was no time to lose. Scott dropped sud- 
denly on the rifle at his feet and let the man trip 
over him again. Then grasping the rifle by the 
end of the barrel he ran to Murphy's assistance. 
He saw the gleam of a knife in the firelight and 


122 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

it almost sickened him. He swung wildly with 
the butt of the rifle and struck the man’s wrists 
sending the knife flying. The rifle swung on 
through a second circle and came down on the 
man’s neck with a sickening thud. 

Murphy was unhurt and furious. He sprang- 
to his feet and tore at the only remaining one o£ 
the crew who was rushing at Scott once more, 
armed with a stick of firewood. Maddened by 
the knowledge that he had been blocked out of 
the fight by a man half his size and largely by his 
own fault because he had allowed that man to 
get the jump on him, Murphy paid no more at- 
tention to the club which the man had than if it 
had been a straw. He brushed it aside and lit- 
erally bore the man to the earth under the fury 
of his onslaught. He was proceeding to pound 
him in true Irish fashion when Scott interfered. 

‘‘Let him go, Murphy!” he shouted. “Grab 
Roberts’ revolver and come ahead. We’ve got to 
get out of here, there is no telling how soon those 
fellows may come from the mill with that lum- 
ber.” He snatched up the other rifle and started 
down the beach. 

A little time before Murphy might have ac- 
123 


SCOTT BURTON 


cased Scott of cowardice for running away from 
the fighting field in this way, but he had no such 
notion now. He obediently left the man whom 
he had been pounding with such satisfaction, 
caught up the automatic from the ground beside 
Roberts and joined Scott. Except when Scott 
had spoken and a single roar of rage from Mur- 
phy when the man had unexpectedly thrown him- 
self upon him, they had fought in utter silence. 

Loaded down with their captured arms, they 
hurried along the beach toward the east. Look- 
ing back they could see some crumpled figures 
beginning to move painfully about the fire. They 
had not gone very far when they came to the 
railroad track and they had not much more than 
crossed it when they heard the creak of the cars 
of lumber. They had gotten away just in time. 
If they had waited five minutes more, four men 
would have been added to their opponents and 
the odds would have been hopeless. 

‘‘Shall we stick around a while and see what 
happens ?” Scott whispered, “or do you think we 
better get a little farther away while the getting 
is good?’’ 

“Don’t see what more we can learn here,” Mur- 
124 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


phy replied, ‘‘unless we sneak back there and 
shoot the whole bunch. We have guns enough 
here now to do it.’’ 

“Nothing to be gained by that now. But I 
would like to hear what those fellows have got 
to say and what their plans are. It will be a lot 
easier for us if we know what they are going to 
do.” 

“Seems to me that we better beat it back as 
fast as we can and get out some warrants for 
these fellows before they can get out of the coun- 
try,” Murphy suggested. 

“Can’t do it,” Scott replied with decision. “If 
they are going to leave the country at all — as 
they certainly will — they will be gone long before 
we can get to town and there will be no way to 
trace them. Besides there may be other people 
mixed up in this thing whom we ought to get, and 
unless we find out from these men who they are 
there will be no way of getting them. The other 
fellows will lie mighty low when they find out 
that their little scheme has been discovered. No, 
we can’t leave them now. You stay here and 
wait while I sneak back there and see if I can 
find out what they are planning.” 

I2S 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘‘Nothing doing/’ Murphy cried emphatically. 
“If you go back there I am going with you. Do 
you think I would let you go back there among 
that bunch of cutthroats alone?” 

“I know it is too bad to miss it, Murphy, but 
that would not do at all. Two of us could not 
hear any more than one and if anything hap- 
pened to us there would not be any one to take 
back the news and these men could go right on 
with their little business just as they have been 
doing for the past two years.” 

“It would not take Graham long to find out 
that we were missing,” Murphy grumbled, “and, 
believe me, he would turji this outfit inside out 
in pretty short order when he got started.” 

“Judging from the looks of him I guess you 
are right,” Scott agreed, “but he does not know 
where we went, does not know anything about 
this outfit, and would not have a clue to guide 
him. We have been two years finding this place 
and he might be two more in finding it again. 
No, Murphy, my plan is the only sensible thing 
to do. I know how you feel and I arn sorry that 
you cannot go. If it were just for fun it would 
be all right, but we are trying to clean this up 
126 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

for the government and it would not be right to 
risk losing all the advantage we have gained/’ 

Murphy was forced to admit that it was the 
only safe thing to do and grudgingly consented 
to stay behind. He made a plea to go in Scott’s 
place, but, of course, Scott could not agree to 
that. He felt that he was directly responsible 
for the capture of these timber thieves and he 
could not very well turn it over to any one else. 

'That’s the way to look at it,” he said, trying 
to comfort Murphy, "and now let’s make sure 
that we understand each other. I am going 
back there to see if I can find out what they are 
planning to do. You are going to wait right 
here till I come back or you are sure that I am 
not coming back. Remember you are not to come 
over there no matter what kind of a row you hear 
or what you may think has happened to me.” 

"That is asking a good deal of a fellow,” Mur- 
phy objected, "and I don’t know whether I can 
do it or not.” 

"You must do it,” Scott insisted. "We cannot 
take the risk of having them pot both of us. 
That is just what they want. If for any reason 
you feel sure that anything has happened to me, 
127 


SCOTT BURTON 


beat it for headquarters as fast as you can go 
and notify Mr. Graham. Then he will know 
where to come and where to look. He can prob- 
ably trace them with hounds or some other way 
if he knows just where to begin and can get on 
the trail right away.” 

‘‘All right,” Murphy agreed, “but it will be the 
hardest job I ever had to do.” 

“Then it is all settled,” Scott said quickly, with- 
out giving Murphy time to think anything more 
about it or to raise any more objections. “It may 
be a long time before I can get back, but unless 
you hear an awful rumpus, wait for me. So 
long.” 

The two men shook hands earnestly and Scott 
turned back toward the camp fire which they 
could still see — a dull red spark in the distance. 

“Hold on,” Murphy whispered, “you haven’t 
any gun. Better take my automatic; it is hand- 
ier than one of those rifles, and they might not 
be in shape anyway.” 

Scott shook his head. “I’ve never learned to 
use a gun and would be almost as apt to shoot 
myself as the other fellow.” 

Murphy looked at him in amazement. “Well, 
128 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

ril admit that you seem to be able to take pretty 
good care of yourself without one, but I suppose 
you know that any one of those fellows back there 
would not think any more of shooting you in the 
back than they would of shooting a yellow dog, 
and it is tempting Providence to go down there 
without a gun of some kind. Take one of the 
rifles then, you can shoot that.’’ 

‘‘It would only be in my way. I’ve just got to 
keep out of sight. If they should see me one gun 
would not do me much good against so many.” 

“Then let me go along and have two guns,” 
Murphy begged. 

Scott saw that he would simply have the whole 
argument to do over again if he stayed there so 
he simply shook his head and moved off into the 
night. He had been brought up in the East in 
the atmosphere of an old New England town 
where the use of a gun in a fight was never heard 
of and he had developed a dislike for it which he 
had never overcome even after a year of life in 
the Southwest. At one time out there when he 
had looked for an instant into the barrel of a .45 
and had realized with sickening force how help- 
less an unarmed man was in the face of a deadly 
129 


SCOTT BURTON 


weapon he had decided to arm himself. But the 
shock of that encounter had hardly worn off when 
he changed his mind. It seemed to him such a 
cowardly way to fight. He had boxed all his life 
and was not afraid to stand up to any man, but to 
shoot a human being and possibly kill him had 
always seemed beyond him. There were times 
like the present when he wished that he could use 
a gun, but as soon as the excitement was over and 
he had a chance to consider the question calmly 
he revolted against it. 

To Murphy who had always lived in a society 
where nearly every one “toted” a gun, Scott’s po- 
sition was altogether incomprehensible. It 
seemed to him that Scott was simply courting 
death to go into such a place as that unarmed, 
and he was strongly tempted to break his prom- 
ise and go after him. He thought a whole lot 
more of Scott since he had seen him in that fight 
there at the camp fire. It was the most wonder- 
ful fight he had ever seen. This man whose 
courage he had doubted had overcome four men 
and rescued him from the fifth. He sat in the 
sand with his back against a tree and thought it 
over. 


130 


CHAPTER XIII 


I N the meanwhile Scott was moving cau- 
tiously along the beach in the direction of 
the camp fire. The fog had grown denser 
and he had to rely on his hearing for anything 
more than a few feet from him. The moon was 
completely blotted out but there was very little 
chance of going astray with the water lapping the 
beach on one side of him and the camp fire show- 
ing as a dull blur ahead. When he stumbled on 
to the railroad track he stopped and listened in- 
tently for a long time. He always had a dread of 
some one slipping up behind him and felt much 
safer if he was sure that all his enemies were 
ahead of him. He did not know how many men 
there were at the mill or how many had come 
down with the lumber, and there was always the 
possibility that some more might come straggling 
in from that direction. 

He caught no sound save the weird screeching 
of the cat owls back in the swamp and crept on 

131 


SCOTT BURTON 


toward the growing light of the camp fire. He 
was close enough now to catch the blur of shad- 
ows passing between him and the fire and hear 
the rumble of sullen voices. He remembered 
seeing a clump of brush a little way from the fire 
on the side away from the beach and decided that 
his best chance would be to circle around inland 
and crawl up behind it. There was little chance 
of detection unless he should run on to one of 
those stragglers whom he so much dreaded, for 
the fog was dense enough to pretty well conceal 
anything outside of the immediate circle of the 
firelight. 

His feet made no sound in the soft sand, but 
he had to move very cautiously to avoid the chance 
of striking a dead stick or a tin can. He was so 
close to them now that the slightest sound might 
give him away. He had completed his circle and 
was crawling slowly forward toward the clump 
of bushes when his heart seemed suddenly to 
stop beating and he stood frozen in his tracks. 
The black stub not more than six feet away and 
on which he had been directing his course had 
moved. 

Had it really moved or was it another case of 
132 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

a waving palm leaf like the one which had fooled 
them back in the cemetery? He waited, hardly 
daring to breathe to see whether it would move 
again. He had a harrowing suspicion that it 
might be a man who had been watching him and 
was preparing to spring upon him as soon as he 
came within range. He argued that it could not 
be a man, for one of these men would shoot on 
sight and not wait to come to close quarters ; they 
had probably had enough of that. But he might 
not be sure whether it was friend or foe and be 
waiting on that account. 

The suspense was frightful, and it seemed to 
him that he had been crouching in that same 
cramped position for hours. He had just about 
decided that he had again been fooled by a stump 
when the object moved again. His first instinct 
was to lie flat on the ground to avoid detection, 
but he realized that that would put him in an 
utterly helpless position and he decided to wait 
as he was and be ready for anything. Unless the 
man did shoot he would stand a very good show 
of dodging him and losing himself in the fog. 

The man came so close that Scott could almost 
have reached out and touched him. Every mus- 

133 


SCOTT BURTON 

cle in his body was as tense as a steel spring and 
he could hardly hold himself, it seemed so cer- 
tain that the only sensible thing to do was to 
strike first and save himself. The figure passed 
slowly by and took its place in the sullen circle 
around the fire. Scott heaved a great sigh of 
relief and moved a little nearer. He felt that he 
had to get close enough to recognize the speakers 
and hear distinctly what was said or he would 
have accomplished very little by his eavesdrop- 
ping. 

At last he reached his little clump of bushes 
and peeped cautiously through them at the coun- 
cil of war which was sitting so close before him. 
They had piled the fire high with driftwood and 
Scott could make out the faces quite distinctly. 
He had no trouble in recognizing the five with 
whom they had fought a few minutes before, 
but there were four others there now. Evidently 
they were the men who had brought down the 
lumber cars. Two of them were sitting with their 
backs to him. Roberts seemed to be the leader 
of the gang. He was standing on the opposite 
side of the fire facing Scott and the others were 
apparently looking to him for orders. He was 

134 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


staring silently at the fire now with an expres- 
sion of bitter hatred and Scott noticed with satis- 
faction that his lower lip was cut and bleeding. 

Suddenly he raised his head and glared fiercely 
around the circle. ‘WeVe got to get ’em, I tell 
you. If they ever get back to town or headquar- 
ters with that story our business will be cooked 
and we’ll be more than likely to go to the pen. 
What good will all the money we’ve made do us 
then ? They can’t get away from us if we keep 
our eyes open. They don’t know the country 
well enough to travel it very fast and Mike would 
get back to the canal long before they could. 
They would probably try to go that way because 
they have their boat right there somewhere — the 
boy saw them this afternoon. If they try to go 
the other way they don’t know the road. They 
would follow the beach and would have' to cut 
away inland to get around the swamp. We can 
hide up there at the head of the swamp and pot 
them dead easy. There is not one chance in a 
hundred of their getting by us because we know 
every foot of the country and they don’t. They 
are in a regular bottle here and there are enough 

135 


SCOTT BURTON 


of us here to cover the neck so that a squirrel 
could not get through.’’ 

‘‘You can count us out on that stuff,” said the 
man who had been the spokesman there that eve- 
ning before Roberts arrived and was evidently 
the skipper of the schooner. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Roberts 
sneered. “You’re about as much interested in 
this thing as we are. You’ll lose a pretty business 
if they blow on our game.” 

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I came 
over here to get a load of lumber, not to help 
murder anybody. If I can’t get a load here I can 
get one somewhere else. It may not pay quite so 
big but it will be a lot safer.” 

Roberts glared at him angrily for a moment. 
He had no scruples himself and the probable loss 
of the tremendous booty he was getting in those 
stolen logs made him almost beyond himself with 
rage. He did not dare speak at first because he 
knew if he did he would surely say something 
which would very likely turn these men against 
him and if they wanted to they could do him 
quite as much harm as the forest officers. He 
swallowed hard and finally succeeded in getting 
136 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

sufficient control of himself to speak with appar- 
ent calmness, but inside he was almost burning 
up with rage. 

‘‘If that is the way you feel about it,’’ he man- 
aged to say quietly, “you better leave now before 
you know any more about it.” 

“Guess you’re about right,” the skipper said, 
rising slowly and speaking to his men. “Come 
on, boys, there is not likely to be much more lum- 
ber going out of this port.” 

“Might as well load on what is already at the 
dock,” said one of the men who was sitting with 
his back to Scott. 

“No, thank you,” the skipper replied. “I have 
a hunch that by the time I got to market with 
that lumber there might be some inquiries about 
it that would make it hard to sell.” 

“Don’t forget that we have a pretty good no- 
tion where to find you if there should ever be any 
need of it,” Roberts called after him as the crew 
disappeared into the fog in the direction of the 
boat. 

“I’m not likely to brag much about my con- 
nection with this end of the business, unless I 
am forced to,” the skipper called back. 

137 


SCOTT BURTON 


There was the sound of a keel grating on the 
sand as the men pushed the boat into the water 
and the splashing of oars told that they were al- 
ready on their way back to their schooner. For 
a few moments the men who were left gazed 
around the fire in silence, listening sullenly to the 
retreating sound of the oars. They were dis- 
couraged by the defection from their ranks, but 
were, if possible, in an uglier mood than before. 

‘‘Chicken-livered scoundrels,’’ Roberts mut- 
tered, breaking the silence. ‘Tf they ever peach 
on us they will have hoisted their last sail. I’d 
get him if I had the noose around my neck.” 

‘‘Can’t hang us for stealing a little lumber,” 
one of the other men answered rather uncer- 
tainly. 

“Maybe you better get out of this bunch, too, 
if you are getting scared,” Roberts sneered, and 
the man was silent. 

“Well,” Roberts continued, “what are we go- 
ing to do about it? What do you think of it, 
Qualley?” 

At that unexpected name Scott started so vio- 
lently that he felt sure they had heard him. He 
could hardly believe his eyes when the man ad- 

138 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

dressed as Qualley arose and he recognized him 
as the foreman of the logging camp. It seemed 
incredible that a man could be such a scoundrel 
as this man seemed to be — stealing on a gigantic 
scale from the company who employed him. And 
all the time for the past two years he had been 
helping Murphy to hunt for the thieves while he 
helped the thieves to get away with the logs. 

From his attitude it was evident that Qualley 
was a partner in the deal with Roberts. "‘There, 
is only one thing we can do now/’ he said, “get 
those two fellows before they get away with the 
news. We have too much at stake to take any 
chance on them spoiling it all.” 

“Then, let’s get busy !” Roberts exclaimed. He 
rubbed his hand gently over his bleeding lip and 
seemed to take considerable satisfaction in the 
prospect of the work ahead of him. 

“Hold on a minute,” Qualley said quietly. “I 
am just as anxious to get busy as you are, but 
there are one or two things we ought to settle 
before we start. What are we going to do if 
they should get away from us ?” 

“Don’t see any chance for them to get away,’^ 
Roberts objected a little nervously. 

139 


SCOTT BURTON 


“No/' Qualley agreed, “it does not seem as 
though they could, but there is a bare possibility 
of it and I would like to get it decided now what 
we are going to do if they do. The government 
has a mighty long arm and they will be after us 
pretty hard if they find out about this business. 
We ought to have some plan." 

“What's your plan?" Roberts asked. Qualley 
was evidently the brains of the party and they 
looked to him for leadership. 

“Well," Qualley replied thoughtfully, “Fve 
been thinking it over and I would suggest some- 
thing like this: if they do get through us and 
make their way straight back to headquarters 
they will have to follow the beach, because there 
is no way for them to get to their boat with Mike 
up there watching the canal. It will be at least 
two days before they can get back. Why not lay 
for them till to-morrow night? If we have not 
gotten them by that time it will be because they 
have gotten by somehow. Then we will know 
what we are up against. You can go way back in 
the swamp there to that old cabin — the dogs can't 
trail you there — and I'll go back to the logging 
140 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

camp where I can keep my eye on things and 
maybe help them hunt/' 

‘What makes you think they will not take 
you?” Roberts asked in surprise. 

‘Why should they? They have not seen me 
and do not know that I have been mixed up in it 
at all. I have helped Murphy hunt for the timber 
thieves so much that he will probably tell me all 
about it; may ask me to help him out. Then I 
would have a fine chance to lead them astray.” 

“How long do you expect us to stay cooped up 
in that cabin? I'd rather be in the penitentiary 
than to try to live in that place for the rest of 
my life, especially if you are out loose and going 
where you please.” Roberts was not at all satis- 
fied with the arrangement. 

“Well, what do you want to do?” Qualley asked 
indifferently. “Make a run for it if you want to, 
but I think you will have a good deal better chance 
if you lay low for a while, say a month or two, 
and then try it. It may have blown over a little 
by that time and they may not be watching so 
close.” 

The plan evidently did not appeal to Roberts. 
It galled him to think that he might be in a trap 


SCOTT BURTON 


while Qualley was not even under suspicion. 
Scott saw the look of sullen craft on his face and 
thought that he would not give much for Qual- 
ley's chances if Roberts was ever taken. Prob- 
ably either one of them would cheerfully watch 
the other hang if he thought it would improve his 
own chances any. 

No one seemed to be able to think of a better 
scheme and Roberts finally agreed to it grudg- 
ingly. ‘‘Let’s be going," he said. “Unless I miss 
my guess we'll have both those would-be detec- 
tives bagged before to-morrow night and there 
will not be any need of anybody hiding in the 
swamp." 

Qualley arose energetically and stretched him- 
self. “I hope you are right and I don't see why 
you shouldn't be. Joe, you go up and tell Mike 
to stay on the job there watching that canal until 
he gets further orders. If they get by him it may 
mean several years in the pen for him, so he bet- 
ter look sharp. The rest of us will take the short 
cut across the swamp to the neck and you can 
join us there as soon as you can make it. The 
four of us ought to be able to cover that swamp 
so that a rabbit could not get through." 

142 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

They moved slowly away toward the track 
and Scott chuckled when he heard Roberts call 
to Joe, ‘‘Stop at the camp on your way over and 
bring me a gun. Those scoundrels stole mine 


CHAPTER XIV 


S COTT waited till they had disappeared in 
the fog and then followed cautiously. Sud- 
denly an idea came to him that made the 
cold chills run up his back. What if they should 
go over past Murphy and Murphy should mistake 
them for him? If they would just keep on talk- 
ing it might be all right, but if they walked in 
silence Murphy would be almost certain to hail 
them. 

He crept up as close behind them as he dared 
so that if the worst came he would be there to 
help Murphy. For the second time in his life he 
sorely regretted that he did not have a gun. If 
there was trouble, Murphy would probably be 
shot before he could get near enough to do any- 
thing. If he had only taken Murphy's advice 
and his pistol he could at least cause a diversion 
even if he could not hit anything. 

Joe had turned off to follow the track to the 
camp but the rest of them went steadily on down 
144 


SCOTT BURTON 


the beach directly toward Murphy. They had 
apparently exhausted their ideas in the talk 
around the camp fire for they had fallen silent 
now, just what Scott had dreaded. He thought 
they must be pretty close to Murphy now and 
he expected every instant to hear his voice. If 
they would only say something. A sudden in^ 
spiration came to him and he deliberately kicked 
a tree he was passing and stopped behind it. He 
was listening breathlessly. 

“What was that?’" Qualley asked in a quiet 
voice. “Did you hear anvthing?” 

There was a pause and then Roberts answered, 
“Yes, I heard it. Must have been a pine cone 
dropping or those cowards out there on the 
schooner locking their back door.” 

Scott heaved a sigh of relief. Certainly Mur~ 
phy must have heard that if he was not asleep. 
It was not likely that a man would go to sleep 
under those circumstances, but the idea worried 
Scott and he knew that he could not feel comfort- 
able again till he had joined Murphy and put him 
wise to the situation. It had never occurred to 
him before he left Murphy that there might be 
some one else wandering around there and they 
I4S 


SCOTT BURTON 


had not arranged any signals for recognition. 

They were all moving again now and he felt 
certain that they must have passed the place 
where he had left Murphy. He stopped and lis- 
tened in silence till long after all sound of the 
rest of them had died away in the distance. He 
waited a moment longer and then hissed cau- 
tiously. The response was so immediate and so 
close that he almost jumped out of his skin. 

‘‘Begorra,” Murphy exclaimed in a relieved 
tone as he stepped out from behind a tree close 
beside Scott, ‘That’s the first time I ever pointed 
a loaded gun at a friend, but you been looking 
down the barrel of my old Luger for the last five 
minutes and didn’t know it. If you had not made 
some signal or something pretty quick I’d have 
blown up.” 

“Gee!” Scott exclaimed, grasping Murphy’s 
hand and sitting suddenly on the ground, “I think 
I would have felt better if you had shot me. I 
have been so afraid you would hail those other 
fellows when they came along that it has just 
about made me sick. I feel as limp as a dish- 
rag. 

“I came mighty near doing just that thing, 
146 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

too/' Murphy replied cheerfully. ‘T had my 
mouth all puckered up to ask you what had kept 
you so long when one of them spoke. I was al- 
ready sitting down or I would have dropped same 
as you did." 

‘‘I was wishing mighty hard that I had taken 
your pistol as you wanted me to. I saw my mis- 
take when I discovered that those fellows might 
run on to you here in the dark, shoot you and 
have it all over before I could ever get near 
enough to them to do anything." 

‘Tretty handy thing to have when you are 
dealing with a bunch like that," Murphy said. 
‘‘But tell me all about it. Where have you been 
all this time and what happened? Where are 
those guys going?" 

Scott thought a second. “It's a pretty long 
story but I guess this is as good a place to tell it 
as any unless we want to hurry on after those fel- 
lows and get ourselves shot." He went on to 
tell Murphy all that he had overheard at the camp 
fire, how their retreat was already cut oflF from 
the canal, and how those men who had just passed 
were on their way to head them olf and shoot 
them if they attempted to make their way around 
147 


SCOTT BURTON 


the head of the swamp. When he mentioned 
Qual ley’s name Murphy almost cried aloud. 

“To think of the hours that old scoundrel has 
sat down there in the brush with me and watched 
to see if he could catch himself stealing logs out 
of that pond!” Murphy exclaimed angrily. “If 
I ever catch up with him I’ll punch his head for 
that if it is my last act.” 

“Now the question for us to decide,” Scott said 
thoughtfully, “is what we are going to do ? How 
are we going to get out of this place? We have 
been two years getting in here and it looks as 
though we might be a long time getting out.” 

Murphy thought about it for a moment. “We 
might go west from here instead of east as they 
expect us to and then go north cross-country till 
we strike the main line railroad. It would be a 
long way around and I do not know anything 
about that country. No telling how many swamps 
we would get tangled up in or whom we might 
meet on the way, but it ought to be fairly safe.” 

“I thought of the possibility of that,” Scott 
replied. “Of course, they do not know that we 
know anything about their plan to head us off. 
They know that we do not know much about this 
148 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

country here and will not know that we are going 
across a narrow little neck of land where they 
cannot miss us. They did not seem to think of the 
possibility of our going around the other way; 
maybe it was because you cannot get around that 
way. At any rate it would take us a long time 
and the plan does not appeal to me much. I am 
in favor of having a look at the swamp and see- 
ing if we cannot figure out some way of getting 
across it.” 

‘‘Let’s try it,” Murphy exclaimed enthusias- 
tically, “even if we can’t make it, it will be shorter 
to wait till they go home than to make a trip 
around the world as we would have to do if we 
went west. They only planned to wait for us till 
to-morrow night.” 

So they decided to follow the beach down to 
the edge of The swamp and try it. They started 
down the beach, moving rather cautiously and 
stopping to listen every few minutes, for they did 
not know that the other men had not stopped 
along there somewhere and they did not care to 
run on to them unexpectedly. Scott glanced at 
his wrist watch. The little luminous hands 
pointed to half-past eleven. The fog was begin- 
149 


SCOTT BURTON 


ning to fade away. Before they had gone very 
far the night was clear once more and it seemed 
almost as light as day. 

‘'That fog must have come on for our special 
benefit/' Scott whispered. They had become so 
accustomed to whispering that they did not seem 
to be able to stop it. 

They thought they were a little too conspicuous 
on the open beach and turned back into the edge 
of the woods where they could see everything on 
the beach without being seen. The soil was so 
sandy and the ground so free from underbrush 
that they made very little noise. What little 
breeze there was was blowing in their faces. 

Suddenly they caught sight of a moving object 
in the woods ahead of them. They stopped in- 
stantly and watched it with bated breath. They 
could not quite make it out, but it was moving 
towards the beach and they knew they would 
soon have a look at it in the moonlight of the 
open. Whatever it was it did not seem to be in 
any hurry. It moved jerkily and stopped so long 
sometimes that they almost lost track of it. It 
looked like a man crouching and sneaking along 
as though stalking something. If it had been 
ISO 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

coming in their direction they would have been 
badly worried, and even as it was Murphy had 
examined his rifle two or three times to make 
sure that it was in working condition. 

When it finally stepped out into the moonlight 
they looked at each other with a sigh of relief. 
It was a doe and she seemed wholly unconscious 
of the presence of any enemy. She walked leis- 
urely and sedately enough until she came to the 
edge of the water and then the moonlight seemed 
to go to her head. She twitched her white tail 
once or twice and suddenly began cavorting 
around like a calf at play. She pranced aimlessly 
this way and that, tossing her head and kicking 
up her heels till the shallow water shone in the 
moonlight like a shimmering puddle of fire. It 
was the first time Scott had ever seen the phos- 
phorescent sparkle of salt water and it seemed to 
him like magic or some fairy business. Every 
time her slender legs cut the still water they left 
a trail of flame. It was a wonderful exhibition 
of unconscious grace and even the practical Mur- 
phy looked on in silent admiration. 

At last one of her sudden dashes took her to 
leeward of them and she caught the man-scent. 
iSi 


SCOTT BURTON 


One sniff was enough. She did not stop to inves- 
tigate further. With flag erect and head held 
high she seemed to rise from the water like a 
bird and a couple of wonderful bounds carried her 
quickly into the protecting shadows of the forest. 
They could hear her going for a moment and 
then a clear, sharp, whistling snort from far back 
in the woods told them that she had stopped to 
see if she were followed. Another snort and a 
snapping of dead branches showed that she was 
not yet satisfied with the distance between them. 

“Must smell pretty bad to her,’’ Scott laughed. 
“Did you ever see anything prettier than that?” 

“If it had not been for those fellov/s out there 
in the brush, and if it were not out of season she 
would have come in awful handy for a midnight 
lunch. It seems to me like a hundred years since 
I had anything to eat.” 

“If you had taken a shot at her it might have 
been more than a hundred years before you 
would have eaten again,” Scott retorted in dis- 
gust. He could not understand how a man could 
look at such a sight as that and think only of 
shooting. “There is no telling how close we may 
be to that bunch.” 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

They had covered about three miles when the 
pine woods ended abruptly at a little creek and 
beyond it was a black and forbidding swamp. 
The undergrowth was dense and tangled and 
under it they could catch the gleam of the moon- 
light in the water. 

‘‘Gee Murphy exclaimed, “I’d hate to tackle 
that place in the dark. Looks as though it might 
be a pretty hopeless proposition even in the day- 
time.” 

The prospect was, indeed, discouraging. They 
had no idea how wide the swamp might be or how 
deep the water might be in parts of it. Some of 
those swamps were easy wading, not more than 
three feet deep, but in others there was as much 
as ten or twelve feet of water. Scott sized it 
up as best he could and came to the conclusion 
that a passage through it at night would be im- 
possible and he doubted very much if the day- 
light would be a very big help. 

He glanced thoughtfully out across the calm 
and shining waters of the bay. “How far can 
you swim, Murphy?” he asked suddenly. 

“Quite a ways down if the water is deep 
I S3 


SCOTT BURTON 


enough,” Murphy retorted, ‘‘but I don’t make 
much progress ahead.” 

“Can’t you swim at all?” Scott asked incredu- 
lously. 

“No more than a stone. Why, were you think- 
ing of swimming to town ?” 

“No, not quite that, but I was wondering how 
far it was to that lighthouse out there. Maybe 
we could get a boat from them.” 

Murphy looked at the winking light in dismay. 
“Well, it’s pretty hard to judge distance across 
the water, but I should say that light was at least 
four or five miles out. No, it would be consider- 
ably quicker for me to wait till to-morrow night 
when those fellows will'have left for their retreat 
in the swamp.” 

“We might not gain very much time in going 
across there,” Scott admitted, “but to tell the 
truth I do not like the prospect of going up around 
the head of this swamp and across that narrow 
neck of land even after to-morrow night. Those 
fellovrs may change their minds and decide to 
stay there a little longer. They would hate to 
lose us and they might decide to stay a little longer 
154 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

or leave Qualley there to watch another day or 
so. I donT so much mind a danger I can see, but 
I hate to have somebody hanging around in the 
bushes watching me. At any rate, I don't sup- 
pose that a day or so would make much differ- 
ence to us. We know where they are going to 
hide and we could find them there next week just 
as well as now." 

‘^Guess that's right," Murphy replied slowly, 
‘'but if there is any chance of our staying here 
for two or three days I am going back there now 
and take a shot at that deer no matter who may 
hear it. They say the buds of these palmettoes 
are good to eat but I never thought much of 
them." 

Scott had a sudden inspiration. “I have it!'’ 
he exclaimed. “There must be a hard strip of 
beach along the edge of that swamp. The tide 
would build it up there in spite of the swamp. 
I'll bet they never thought of that." 

They both ran eagerly forward and waded the 
creek. It was not more than knee-deep. They 
were about in the middle of the stream when 
Murphy looked nervously over his shoulder to- 
I5S 


SCOTT BURTON 

ward the dark woods behind them. ‘T wonder if 
this is the narrow neck they were going to wait 
for us to cross ?’’ he questioned. 

It was an unpleasant thought and they both 
ran a little faster. Scott was involuntarily writh- 
ing his body back and forth as though he could 
already feel the bullet in his back. Murphy evi- 
dently felt the same way about it and his Irish 
philosophy expressed Scott's thoughts exactly. 

‘T wonder why it is," he soliloquized as he 
ducked back and forth, ‘‘that a fellow would al- 
ways so much rather be shot some place else than 
the place where he thinks he is going to be?" 

Scott was too busy to answer him. They would 
not have had nearly so far to wade if they had 
gone down on to the beach before they took to 
the water, but they had been so eager to test out 
their new idea that they had jumped right in up 
there in the woods. The swamp was opposite 
them there and they had to wade down till they 
came to the beach. Murphy's suggestion that 
this might be the spot where their enemy was 
waiting for them had disturbed them so that they 
were both running through the water now and 

156 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

wondering how they ever got so far away from 
the beach. 

They almost shouted when they rounded the 
farthest projection of the swamp brush and saw 
a broad, smooth beach stretching out before them. 
It seemed too good to be true. They made a mad 
dash toward it to put that point of brush between 
them and the imaginary rifles they had conjured 
up behind them. 

Scott reached it first and fell sprawling on his 
face. He thought for an instant that he had been 
shot, but he had not heard anything and it felt 
more as though some one had caught his foot. 
He had not yet realized what had happened when 
Murphy landed beside him with a grunt. He put 
out his hands to lift himself up and gasped with 
astonishment when he saw them disappear in the 
smooth sand. His feet seemed to be caught 
under something and he pushed up his body with 
his arms to investigate. He was yanked uncere- 
moniously back on to his face. Out of the cor- 
ner of his eye he saw Murphy go through almost 
the same contortions. 

Thoroughly frightened now he pulled viciously 
at one hand. It came slowly and heavily from 

157 


SCOTT BURTON 


the reluctant sand. Then something seemed to 
give way in his head. ‘'Quicksand he shrieked, 
and began to struggle with the frenzy of mad- 


ness. 


CHAPTER XV 


W EARINESS, lack of sleep, extraordi- 
nary exertion and the tremendous 
nervous strain under which he had 
been for the past forty-eight hours had been too 
much for Scott’s nerves. Now the realization 
that he was caught in one of those death traps of 
which he had read such horrible things and actu- 
ally seen so little had broken him up completely. 
He lost all control of himself and struggled 
blindly. Left to himself he would undoubtedly 
have quickly exhausted his strength and have 
been slowly buried beneath those treacherous, 
quivering sands. 

To Murphy it had appeared a very different 
proposition. He had seen many quicksands, and 
when once the first explosion of exasperation was 
over his downfall struck him as a good deal of a 
joke. He mistook Scott’s raving for a burst of 
anger and that made him laugh all the more. He 
had worked his way out of the quicksand and 
1 59 


SCOTT BURTON 


stepped back on to the solid ground before he 
realized what a condition Scott was really in. 

Suddenly it came to him. With a single bound 
he was back beside the struggling man whose in- 
effective writhing had already worked his arms 
into the sand to the elbow. He grabbed Scott 
by the shoulders and lifted with all his might. 
He could feel his own feet sinking, but that did 
not worry him; he continued to pull. Slowly 
Scott’s arms were drawn from the grasping 
sands. As soon as the hands were free he shook 
his burden violently. 

“Brace up, old man, and come out of it. You’re 
all right. Stop that struggling and we can walk 
right out of here. Stop it, I tell you.” 

At first Scott did not seem to hear him. He 
continued to struggle and beat the air wildly even 
after his hands were clear, but gradually Mur- 
phy’s voice seemed to reach him as from a great 
distance and he looked at him in a dazed fashion 
like a man coming out of a nightmare. 

“You are all right now,” Murphy reassured 
him. “We’ll be out of here in a minute. Pull 
up slowly on one foot while I steady you. It will 
come hard, but it will come all right if you keep 
i6o 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

at it. Don’t try to do it quick; you can’t do it 
that way. Just pull slowly and steadily. Feel it 
coming?” 

Scott did not feel it coming at first, and for an 
instant he was on the verge of falling back into 
another fit of terror, but he managed to control 
himself and was rewarded by feeling his foot 
breaking slowly from the reluctantly yielding 
sand. 

“That’s the stuff,” Murphy encouraged. “Now 
the other one. Comes hard, doesn’t it?” 

It certainly did come hard and Scott felt as 
nearly utterly exhausted as he ever had in his 
life, but he had recovered his nerve and contin- 
ued to pull doggedly. The perspiration stood in 
beads on his forehead and he could feel his 
strength oozing out of him. At last, after what 
seemed like a lifetime of desperate effort, the foot 
was free. 

“Now walk slowly out there on to solid 
ground,” Murphy advised him. “Don’t try to 
hurry or you may fall again. It will be sort of 
hard to lift your feet, but they will come.” 

It was needless to advise Scott not to hurry. 
He could not have hurried if his life had depended 

i6i 


SCOTT BURTON 


on it. Laboriously he worked his way over the 
few feet of quicksand to the hard ground of the 
stream-bed. Each step was a struggle. The feel- 
ing of the firm earth under his feet instead of that 
sickening ooze was such a relief that it was all he 
could do to keep from sitting down in the water 
right where he was. 

With the feeling of security, a hazy thought 
which had been puzzling him vaguely throughout 
the struggle took definite form. “What are you 
standing on, Murphy?*’ he called back over his 
shoulder. It had been worrying him to know how 
Murphy could stand beside him in that sink hole 
and lift him up. 

“I don’t know what it is,” Murphy answered 
cheerfully, “but I guess it must be the soles of 
some Chinaman’s feet,” he muttered to himself, 
“from the depth I’ve gone down here.” 

Murphy had stood manfully to his job of free- 
ing Scott, neglecting to move his own feet for 
fear he might shake Scott’s confidence once more 
and he had settled to a dangerous depth in the 
sullen sand. His legs were buried to his knees 
and he could feel himself sinking steadily deeper. 
Now Scott was free he devoted his best strength 
162 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


to extricating himself. He pulled desperately 
but did not seem to make any progress. What 
he gained on one foot he seemed to lose on the 
other. He did not want to call Scott back unless 
his case was hopeless. 

Scott, who had reached dry land and thrown 
himself limply on the beach, looked back and saw 
him struggling back there in the moonlight. 
“What is the matter, Murphy ?’" he called in 
alarm. “Are you fast now?” 

“No,” Murphy lied courageously, “I dropped 
my gun and I can’t seem to find it.” 

Murphy was gaining a little on the quicksand 
now. Every time he changed feet he could feel 
the other one rise a trifle, but it was killing work 
and he wondered whether his strength would hold 
out long enough for him to free himself. Two or 
three times he felt as though he would have to 
give it up; he was even losing interest in the 
struggle and did not seem to care anything more 
about it. He knew he was fast approaching the 
limit of his strength, but he struggled on as in a 
dream. He no longer knew what he was doing, 
and he never knew till Scott told him afterwards 
163 


SCOTT BURTON 


how he had staggered wearily across the creek 
and collapsed on the dry beach. 

‘'Did you find your gun Scott asked sleepily, 
but there was no response. Completely ex- 
hausted, they both slept soundly on the open 
beach. 


CHAPTER XVI 


I N the meanwhile nothing had occurred to put 
Qualley and Roberts to sleep. They had 
followed the beach for only a short distance 
after passing Murphy and had then turned off 
into the swamp on a deer trail with which they 
were familiar. Progress was slow in the dark- 
ness of the swamp and the rough going did not 
better their already ragged tempers. Each was 
absorbed in his own brooding and there was no 
talking with the exception of frequent angry ex- 
clamations when some one of the party tripped 
over a hidden stick or root. They were all in 
an ugly mood, especially Roberts, whose disposi- 
tion was never very pleasant. 

The trail bore away to the northeast and 
headed for the upper end of the swamp which cut 
back into the forest from the beach like a big bay. 
The trail soon lead them across that narrow neck 
of swamp and out on to an open pine ridge which 
bordered the big swamp to the east of it. At the 
i6s 


SCOTT BURTON 


point where the trail struck it the ridge was two 
or three miles wide, but it narrowed rapidly to 
the northward and terminated three miles inland 
in a very narrow neck not more than a hundred 
yards wide between two very dense swamps. 

This was the place where they confidently ex- 
pected to catch Scott and Murphy. Roberts 
looked at the narrow strip of open pine woods, 
almost free from underbrush, with a grunt of sat- 
isfaction. 

‘‘Not much cover for them there,’’ he growled. 
“A rabbit could not get across there to-night 
without our seeing it. Unless they get suspicious 
and go west on the beach they are ours.” 

“Of course,” Qualley replied thoughtfully, “as 
I said a while ago, there is a possibility that they 
may go west or try to go north, but I don’t think 
they will. They probably think that they can 
travel as fast or faster than we can and would 
take advantage of the lead they had to beat it 
straight down the beach for town. They do not 
know that the swamp is there and when they come 
to it they will naturally try to get around the end 
of it. That means about three miles down the 
beach for them and about five up here if they 
i66 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

follow the edge of the swamp. They do not know 
that this is the only way through, so why should 
they try to avoid it 

‘‘Well, let’s get ready for them. They’ll be 
dropping in on us first thing we know and catch 
us blabbing here. I’ll take this clump of brush on 
the edge of the swamp, and Bob and Jim can hide 
over there on the other side. You can go down 
just beyond there in that bunch of palmetto and 
if by any possibility I should miss ’em you would 
be sure of them.” 

Roberts suggested this arrangement because he 
feared that Qualley, who he thought was not 
known to be implicated in the crime, might be 
loath to shoot these innocent men. He had no 
such scruples himself and wanted a position 
where he would have the best chance at them. 

Qualley raised no objection and they all sepa- 
rated in silence to take up their assigned posts. 
In about an hour, they figured, their victims 
ought to be putting in an appearance if they were 
coming at all. Qualley was apparently dozing 
comfortably in his clump of palmetto and the two 
hired men whispered cheerfully enough behind 
their brush screen. To Roberts alone, burning 
167 


SCOTT BURTON 


up as he was with a combination of hatred and 
fear, the minutes seemed to drag insufferably. 
He glanced nervously at his watch every few 
minutes and eagerly stared at the first projection 
on the edge of the swamp where he expected his 
victims to appear. As the time he had estimated 
for their arrival grew nearer, it was all that he 
could do to keep from crawling out of his hiding 
place and sneaking down to that point to see if 
they might not be hiding just around the corner. 

More than an hour had passed and still they 
did not come. Roberts became as restless as a 
caged tiger. The owls had ceased their weird 
concert back in the swamp and there was nothing 
to break the stillness of the night save the never- 
absent small noises of the night. If only the wind 
would blow, or a tree drop or anything to break 
that nerve-racking monotony. Roberts moved 
irritably from one cramped position to another 
and still the tardy hours dragged wearily by with- 
out any change. Only the moon turned in her 
course and started the shadows slanting in an- 
other direction. 

And yet they had not come. A certain chill 
crept into the air, a forewarning of the break of 

i68 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

day. It was the hour when the pulse of the world 
is at the ebb, when sick men sometimes fail to 
catch the flood and are stranded in the great Be- 
yond. No man can sit through it in the woods 
at night and not feel a certain awe, close akin to 
fear. Roberts felt it. All criminals are super- 
stitious and with the turning of that tide he felt 
convinced that fate had turned against him. His 
prey had escaped him and with their escape every 
hour lessened the chances of his opportunity to 
enjoy the benefits of his stolen wealth. The pos- 
sibility of spending the greater part of the re- 
mainder of his life in a penitentiary, just when 
he had acquired the means to enjoy himself, was 
almost maddening. 

The first sudden streak of the southern dawn 
shot out across the eastern sky and Roberts 
could stand it no longer. With one last lingering 
look at that long-watched point he crept from his 
hiding place and sneaked cautiously back with 
many a nervous glance over his shoulder to the 
place where Qualley was stationed. 

‘‘Let’s leave the boys here to watch this place 
and go back to the beach,” he whispered. “Maybe 
we can track them now in the daylight.” 

169 


SCOTT BURTON 


^Well, if you want to risk it/’ Qualley assented, 
a little reluctantly, ‘‘but they have about an equal 
chance of seeing us first. If they have gone west 
they have gone so far that we cannot catch them 
and if they go any other way they must either 
come here or go up past Mike so I do not see what 
you will gain, but if you want to go I’m game.” 

“We’ll at least know where they did go,” Rob- 
erts replied irritably. “Anything is better than 
waiting here doing nothing.” 

Qualley had just risen from his cozy nest and 
stretched himself when he suddenly grabbed Rob- 
erts’ arm and they both dropped quickly back into 
the shelter of the brush. A man could be very 
distinctly seen slipping along the edge of the 
swamp towards them. 

Roberts gave a grunt of satisfaction and pushed 
over the safety on his revolver. “Let me take 
him,” he hissed. 

“All right,” Qualley replied, “but let him get 
closer. There will be less chance to miss, and be- 
sides the other fellow is not in sight yet and you’ll 
scare him off.” 

They waited breathlessly while the man came 
slowly forward, slipping along from clump to 
170 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

clump and apparently wholly unconscious of their 
presence. Roberts was so eager to shoot that 
only constant warnings from Oualley prevented 
him from taking a shot even at the risk of losing 
the other man. At last the figure had reached a 
point almost opposite them on the edge of the 
swamp. He stepped out into the open an. instant 
and looked about him. He was not more than 
thirty yards away. 

Roberts raised his pistol and aimed quickly. 
It was an easy shot and not much chance to miss. 
Just as he fired Qualley shouted and struck up 
the weapon. The suddenness of the blow knocked 
the pistol out of Roberts’ hand and the bullet 
whined harmlessly through the treetops. 

Roberts turned savagely upon Qualley with the 
snarl of a wounded tiger. ‘‘Double cross me, 
will you?” he gasped, snatching at his knife. 

“Double cross nothing,” Qualley answered 
quietly. “Another instant and you would have 
shot Joe.” 

Sure enough it was Joe bringing the rifle from 
the camp as he had been ordered to do and he was 
not slow in making himself known when he heard 
the shot. They had both forgotten all about him. 

1 71 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘Well, I guess that will be sufficient warning 
to the other fellows,’’ Qualley remarked after a 
satisfactory explanation had been made to Joe. 
“There is not much use in hanging around here 
any longer now. If they had not started west 
before that they probably are making pretty good 
time in that direction now.” 

Roberts was too much chagrined to have any 
reply. He pushed his revolver into his holster 
with disgust and took his rifle from Joe. 

“There is nothing to do now, I suppose,” he 
grumbled, “except to go down to the beach and 
see where they did go. I am at least going to 
have that satisfaction before I sneak off into any 
hiding place.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Qualley agreed. “I’d like 
to see where they went myself and there is the 
bare possibility that they have spent the night 
down there on the beach and were too far off to 
hear that shot. Joe, you and the other boys watch 
this pass till we get back.” 

There did not seem to be much need for cau- 
tion now, but they moved rather carefully and 
scouted the ground pretty thoroughly before they 
rounded any corners. They hardly expected to 
172 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

find the boys traveling that way in the daytime, 
but they were not taking any chances on meeting 
them unexpectedly. When they came to the cut- 
off trail they had not yet seen any tracks except 
their own. 

“Want to take the trail or follow the edge of 
the swamp Qualley asked. 

“Let’s follow the trail,” Roberts growled. He 
could feel his chances slipping away from him 
and it made him surly. 

They traveled faster now, for there was not 
much chance of meeting any one in that direc- 
tion and soon came out of the swamp on to the 
beach. It was easy to read the signs on the 
smooth sands of the beach and a glance showed 
them two tracks going east. They searched more 
carefully. There were none coming back. 

“Must be somewhere between here and the 
neck,” Qualley said ; “there is no possible way out 
unless they found a boat. I never heard of any 
one going through that swamp.” . 

“Not a chance,” Roberts exclaimed with rising 
spirits, “we’ll get ’em yet.” 

The trail was plain enough on the open beach, 
but it had them worried a little when it turned 

173 


SCOTT BURTON 


back into the edge of the forest. It looked as 
though they might have changed their minds and 
decided to circle back to the west. 

‘Wonder if something scared them out?^’ Rob- 
erts asked anxiously, as they searched for the 
trail in the forest. The anxiety was of short 
duration, for they soon picked up some tracks in 
the palmetto scrub and when they had learned its 
general direction they had no trouble in following 
the trail. 

Qualley guessed the reason for the digression 
into the forest pretty closely. “Thought they 
would be less conspicuous in here and might lose 
us for a while,’’ he explained. “It would have 
worked all right last night and caused us consid- 
erable delay, at least if we had been hard on their 
trail as they probably thought we were. Rather 
clever of them. They make it a little hard for 
us yet.” 

But Roberts was not to be discouraged. He 
had been down in the dumps a short time before 
and could see nothing ahead of him but an uncom- 
fortable cell in the penitentiary or an almost 
equally unpleasant life in a dismal hiding place; 

174 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

now he felt sure of his prey and was in a triumph- 
ant mood. 

'‘I would not give them much for their 
chances/’ he retorted grimly, and hastened his 
pace on the uncertain trail. ‘Tn half an hour our 
worries will be over.” 

And it certainly looked as though he was right, 
for the palmetto scrub had given way to a stretch 
of open sand and the trail lay clear before them, 
leading straight to the sleeping men on the beach 
less than a quarter of a mile away. 


CHAPTER XVII 


S COTT awoke in the morning with the sun 
shining full in his face. He had been so 
dead to the world that it was hard for him 
to realize where he was and how he came to be 
sleeping on the open beach with the waves of the 
rising tide lapping the sands within a few feet 
of him. Suddenly the events of the night before 
came to him and a feeling of horror crept over 
him when he realized what a risk they had run 
by exposing themselves in that way right in the 
enemy’s country. 

‘‘Good thing they waited for us instead of com- 
ing to look for us,” he thought, as he sat up to 
reconnoiter. His first glance was down the beach 
in the direction from which they had come. A 
chill ran over him that seemed to leave him para- 
lyzed; he just stared. Then he rubbed his eyes 
to see if he was really awake. It seemed like the 
continuation of a dream which had been haunting 
him for a good part of the night. 

176 


SCOTT BURTON 


There were Roberts and Qualley not over two 
hundred yards away and walking rapidly straight 
toward them. With the realization that was far 
from a dream, that these men were only too real 
and were hastening forward on his trail now 
eager with the hope of getting a shot at him, Scott 
came to life with a violent jerk. In two more 
minutes they could not help seeing him if, indeed, 
they had not discovered him already. 

He formed his plan instantly. There seemed 
to be only one chance. Flattening himself as close 
to the sand as possible to escape notice, he reached 
out quickly and shook Murphy’s shoulder at the 
same time warning him not to move or speak. 
Murphy was a light sleeper and he was wide 
awake the instant Scott touched him, wide enough 
awake to take in his meaning at once. He simply 
looked at Scott inquiringly without moving his 
head or body at all. 

“They are after us, Murphy. They are on our 
trail and not more than a few rods away. Our 
only chance is to try to slip into the creek with- 
out being seen and hide in the bushes over there 
in the swamp. Careful now, but hurry.” 

Murphy took a hasty peek at the two men and 
177 


SCOTT BURTON 


felt for his gun. The holster was empty and his 
face fell. He had pretended to Scott that he had 
lost it in the quicksand, but he did not know that 
he had. He had been inclined to fight when he 
saw that there were only two men in the ap- 
proaching party, but now there was no chance. 
He twisted sullenly about on the sand and wrig- 
gled down the gentle incline after Scott, who was 
already headed for the creek alligator fashion. 
It was uncomfortable business, for they had seen 
their enemies so clearly that it was hard to real- 
ize that they had not been seen. They rather 
expected to hear the crack of a rifle any minute. 

They slid quietly into the water and made for 
the opposite shore, or rather the opposite rim of 
brush, for there was no shore there. Scott swam 
under water and managed to make shelter with- 
out coming to the surface. Murphy could not do 
that, but he held his breath and crawled on the 
bottom as fast as he could. He had to come up 
for air, but he stuck only his nose out of water 
like a hunted loon, and was able to take his next 
breath in the shelter of a titi bush. They hastily 
selected a dense bush just beyond for a hiding 
place and worked their way to it carefully. For- 
178 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

tunately for them the bottom of the swamp was 
sandy or a trail of muddy water might have be- 
trayed them. They were no farther away from 
the shore than that. They submerged themselves 
to their eyes and waited. 

“Ought not to have any trouble in keeping cool 
here,” Murphy whispered with his usual humor. 
No matter how glum Murphy was feeling, danger 
immediately brought his wit to his rescue. 

They could look out through the small openings 
in the bush without much danger of being seen. 
The men were so close that Scott could see the ex- 
pression on their faces. He could see that Rob- 
erts, who was eagerly setting the pace a little way 
ahead of his companion, was triumphant now and 
sure that the fight was won. He could even see 
the ugly cut on Roberts’ lip and how he longed 
for the opportunity to put another one beside it. 

The men had reached the edge of the creek now 
a little ways above, at the point where the boys 
had taken to the water the night before in their 
eagerness to reach those quicksands. They heard 
a burst of profanity from Roberts. “Taken to 
the water like a couple of foxes,” he exclaimed 
angrily. His eye wandered down the bank of 
179 


SCOTT BURTON 

the creek and was quick to catch the tracks in the 
sand where the boys had slept. Roberts almost 
ran in his eagerness. Qualley walked slowly and 
thoughtfully, looking for other signs. 

Both men stared for a long time at that pecul- 
iar-looking conglomeration of tracks with puzzled 
faces. They could not understand the peculiar 
trail the boys had made when they had wriggled 
down into the creek a few minutes before. Scott 
thanked heaven that there was no way to tell in 
that dry sand how recently those marks had been 
made. 

Qualley squatted down and examined every de- 
tail carefully. ‘That is evidently where they 
slept,” he said, pointing to the impressions of the 
outstretched figures. ‘T think I know what they 
did. They went over there and tackled that 
quicksand and got stuck. They managed to get 
out of it and came over here on the beach to rest 
up and decide what they were going to do next. 
But blessed if I can figure out what they were 
doing there,” and he pointed to the peculiar slides. 
He arose suddenly and looked out toward the 
cape. “DonT suppose they could have built a 
i8o 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

raft and made the cape, do you?’' he asked, as 
though questioning himself. 

‘'No signs of their having built one here,” 
Roberts replied, “but it looks as though they had 
pulled something into the water. Might have 
been an old plank, but that would have been 
water-logged and would not float.” 

Qualley turned thoughtfully from the cape and 
fixed his gaze absent-mindedly on the very bunch 
of brush behind which the boys were hiding. It 
seemed to them that he must see them and they 
both involuntarily sank a little deeper into the 
water. Between the excitement and the chill of 
the swamp water their teeth were chattering so 
that they were afraid it would be heard clear 
across the creek. 

Qualley shook his head slowly. “No, there is 
only one thing that they could have done; they 
must have tried to cross the swamp. We can see 
plain enough that they were here and there are no 
tracks leading away from here. They did not 
build a raft and Murphy can’t swim, so there is 
nothing left but the swamp. Well, I wish them 
joy of their trip.” 

i8i 


SCOTT BURTON 

Roberts hated to give in. ‘‘There is not much 
chance of their getting across, but I wish we knew 
what had happened to them so that we would not 
be in suspense so long. It will be a week before 
we can be sure that they did not get away. Pos- 
sibly they got foxy and followed up the edge of 
the creek a ways to shake us off the trail.’’ 

“We can soon find that out,” Qualley replied; 
“we can follow the edge of the swamp up to where 
the others are waiting and see whether we can 
pick up any tracks. They could not have passed 
us that way in the night or we would have heard 
them. Nothing could move through that brush 
without making an awful racket, especially at 
night.” 

“If we don’t find anything,” Roberts grum- 
bled, “I suppose it will be up to us to beat it for 
that cursed cabin and wait to see what happens.” 

“Yes,” Qualley said indifferently, “it would 
not be safe to put it off much longer. I’ll keep a 
watch out for them around here for a while longer 
to make sure that they do not come back out of 
the swamp and then go back to the camp and 
wait to see if they get back there. If they show 
up I’ll let you know at once. If they have not 
182 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


come through by the end of a week it will prob- 
ably be safe to get back to work again/’ 

When Qualley said that he would watch a while 
to see that they did not come back the boys’ hearts 
sank, for they knew that they could not hold out 
in that cold water much longer, and, as Qualley 
had said, no one could move in that swamp with- 
out making a racket which could easily be heard 
by any one listening on the other side of the 
creek. They looked at each other with a sigh of 
relief when the two men turned and walked off 
up the edge of the creek together. 

They waited breathlessly till they saw the men 
round a point some distance away with their eyes 
on the ground watching for any telltale signs. 
‘‘Well, now what shall we do?” Murphy whis- 
pered between his chattering teeth. 

“I’ve got to get out of here and get warm before 
I can even think,” Scott replied. His lips were 
blue and he was shivering so that he could hardly 
talk. “I wonder if we could not find a log or 
something over there on that quicksand where 
we could get in the sun without being in plain 
sight of any one who came along?” 

They waded over toward the quicksand, feel- 

183 


SCOTT BURTON 


ing their way cautiously and expecting every 
minute to feel the sand giving way beneath them. 
A large tree which had fallen with its stump on 
the solid ground and its top buried in the quick- 
sand offered them just the kind of place they 
wanted. They crawled quickly on to the fallen 
trunk and then eagerly out into the sunlight. 

‘'Gee! doesn’t that sun feel fine?” Murphy 
chattered. ‘T wish we dared to build a fire. I 
don’t feel as though I could ever get warm clear 
through again.” 

Of course they did not dare to build a fire and 
were obliged to content themselves with sitting in 
the sunlight and beating themselves with their 
arms to try to stimulate their tardy circulations. 
It was about a quarter of an hour before their 
teeth ceased to chatter and they began to feel at 
all comfortable. 

“Now then,” Scott said, basking flat on the log 
so that he could soak up as much warmth as pos- 
sible, “which shall it be? Wait here till dark and 
then try to run the gauntlet up around that neck 
they have been watching, make a break now to the 
west and take a chance on getting away before 
184 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

Qualley comes back, or have a try at crossing this 
swamp ?” 

Murphy threw a disgusted look at the cold 
swamp in which he had been soaking for the 
last half-hour and showed very clearly that no 
matter what he might think of any of the other 
schemes he would prefer anything to any more 
wading. ‘'Gosh V* he exclaimed suddenly with so 
much feeling that Scott straightened up to see 
what had happened, ‘Td sure hate to be an alliga- 
tor. Don’t like that plan of going up around 
that neck much better either. No telling how 
long they might leave a guard hanging around up 
there. I’m for a break to the west. There would 
not be so much uncertainty about that. We’d 
either make it, or we wouldn’t,” he added with a 
shrug. 

“Might try Qualley’s raft scheme,” Scott sug- 
gested. 

“Nothing doing!” Murphy exclaimed emphati- 
cally. “That would be worse than trying the 
neck. It would take us hours to float across there 
and Qualley might come back and practice some 
long-distance target shooting on us for an hour 
or so. Even if he missed us he could go around 

i8^ 


SCOTT BURTON 


to the head of the cape and catch us when we 
came out. No, that does not appeal to me.’’ 

As a matter of fact it did not appeal to Scott 
either. Like Murphy he was in favor of staking 
everything on a dash to the west. If Qualley did, 
not happen to see them right at the start they 
would be comparatively safe for the rest of the 
way. He had wanted to try the swamp till he 
had found how cold the water could get, now he 
felt that he would very much prefer being shot. 

‘‘All right, then,” he agreed, ‘‘let’s make a 
break for it. We ought to hunt up a log like this 
or something of the sort where we could get out 
of here without leaving a trail right on the edge 
of it, and we better work our way up to that point 
so that we can see that no one is right on hand to 
see us start.” 

Now that they had decided what to do it 
seemed as though it was already half done, and 
they began to feel a great deal more hopeful. 
They almost forgot that they had been half 
frozen a little while before, but the thought of 
wading ashore now reminded them of it. How 
they hated to get off that log into the cold 
water. 


i86 



‘‘Are we ready Scott asked, preparing to 
slide from the log. 

“Sure,’’ Murphy replied cheerfully. “I’d feel a 
little more like it if I had something to eat, but I 
guess I can make it.” 

They slid quietly off the log into the water 
and made their way cautiously back toward the 
creek, keeping a sharp lookout for any one who 
might have come back to have a last look for 
them. There was no one in sight on the beach. 
Keeping just inside the brush on the edge of the 
swamp, they worked their way up to the point 
where Qualley and Roberts had disappeared a 
while before. They could see for quite a dis- 
tance here and the coast seemed clear. 

They could not find any log which would take 
them out of the creek on the opposite side and 
clear of the bank, but they selected a large dump 
of bunch grass for a landing place, took one more 
look to make sure that no one was watching, and 
made a dash for it. It seemed to Scott that he 
had been putting in most of his time lately tear- 
ing around the country with the expectation of 
being shot in the back. They half expected it 
now. Scott stepped on a stick which broke witfa 

187 


SCOTT BURTON 


a loud crack and Murphy jumped three feet in 
the air. 

“Begorrah, I thought they had me that time V* 
he grumbled as he ran the faster. ‘T wonder if 
it would really feel as mean to be shot in the back 
as a fellow thinks it would 

‘‘Shut up/’ Scott growled. “Think of some- 
thing pleasant to say, can’t you?” 

They had not realized how thin that pine woods 
was till they tried to hide themselves in it. It 
seemed as though you could see through it for 
half a mile. They had run all of that before they 
felt at all safe and sat down on a log to catch 
their breath. 

“Well, we have passed the worst of it,” Scott 
panted, “but I’ll feel a lot better when we have 
crossed that railroad and gotten into a country 
where we are not likely to run into any one who 
will be looking for us. It would be just our luck 
to meet some one on that railroad track.” 

They were anxious to have the suspense over 
and soon started again, traveling in the edge of 
the woods where they could keep an eye on the 
beach. They crossed the trail the men had taken 
the night before and were soon in sight of the 
1 88 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

track. They reconnoitered before they ventured 
into the open, but the place seemed completely de- 
serted. The schooner was gone and the bay was 
empty. They listened a long time, but could hear 
nothing save the monotonous lapping of the water 
on the beach. 

“Guess it’s all right,” Murphy remarked, walk- 
ing out into the open. He made his way straight 
for the old camp fire and began hunting around 
it as though he had lost something the night be- 
fore. 

“What did you lose?” Scott asked. 

“Nothing, I was only hoping that they had lost 
something to eat here. If I had that deer we saw 
last night I could chew a leg off her. When did 
we have anything to eat last, anyway ?” 

It was a long time since they had had any food 
and the sight of the empty tin cans around the 
fire made it seem even longer. They could not 
find so much as a scrap of bread. 

“Cheer up, Murphy,” Scott exclaimed, “we are 
going into a new country now and we may find a 
house in the first fifty miles or so. Who knows ?” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


T hey were, indeed, going into a new 
country, that is, a new and strange coun- 
try to them, but really a very cold country 
if they were to believe the signs about them. They 
were scarcely out of sight of the camp-fire site 
when they stumbled on to the ruins of the old 
town of St. Joseph. It had evidently been a gay 
and prosperous place at one time. The outlines 
of the foundations of huge cotton warehouses 
were distinctly traceable and the ground was lit- 
tered with pieces of broken bricks. A little 
farther on they found a foundation almost half 
full of broken champagne bottles, and beyond 
that the oval of a racetrack almost uncanny in its 
appearance of recent use. There were certain 
things about it which made it seem as though the 
place had been suddenly destroyed by an earth- 
quake or other catastrophe only a short time be- 
fore. It was very hard to realize that there had 
been no one living there for eighty years. 


SCOTT BURTON 

It was a question with the boys whether they 
would push on west along the beach in the hope 
of striking a town in that direction or whether 
they would turn north to the main-line railroad. 
Their experience with the blind pocket which 
they had gotten into the night before made them 
a little afraid of the beach, and they had no idea 
how far it might be in that direction before they 
would come to a town. They knew that the rail- 
road could not be over forty miles north and 
thought it would be reasonable to expect to find 
some settlement in that direction. Food was be- 
ginning to be a serious consideration. 

They stood on the edge of the old town and 
looked about them. Each knew what was in the 
other’s mind. 

“Let’s try it to the north,” Murphy suggested. 
“There ought to be some grub somewhere up in 
that direction.” 

That agreed pretty well with Scott’s decisions 
and they turned toward the north. The country 
was about as forlorn-looking as any that Scott 
had ever seen. The big timber had been cut away 
for some miles, probably to supply the old town, 
and there was nothing left but a scattering stand 
igi 


SCOTT BURTON 


of scrub oak on the flat, white sand, with now and 
then a small patch of scrub palmetto. Aside from 
the old and blackened stumps there was not a 
trace of the civilization which had at one time 
flourished so near there. They had been travel- 
ing through this dismal waste for about an hour. 

“DonT look much like anything to eat around 
here !” Scott exclaimed in disgust. 

Murphy did not reply. He was too hungry for 
words, but after about a half-hour’s silence he 
answered : 

“Wonder why a fellow has to think about 
something he can’t get all the time. I try to think 
about something as far away from food as I can 
and in two minutes I’m longing for a beefsteak 
again.” 

Scott had been trying the same thing and knew 
that it was true. But they both felt that their 
strength would hold out for the day all right 
and they would surely find some habitation be- 
fore the end of the day. The sand was not soft 
enough to bother them and they were making 
good time. At least they did not have to worry 
about the men who were looking for them over 
there to the east. 


192 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


They must have covered about six miles in this 
way when the same old curse of this country 
loomed up in front of them in the form of a 
swamp which stretched as far as they could see 
to east and west. They both sighted it at about 
the same time and looked at each other in utter 
disgust. 

‘T am for going straight through her,” Scott 
exclaimed determinedly, ‘‘if she is ten miles wide 
and a mile deep. If you follow the edge of it 
west it will probably lead to a quicksand on the 
beach, and if you follow it east you will end up 
on that same neck where those fellows are wait- 
ing for us. This country seems to have been built 
for their special benefit,” he added bitterly. 

“Tm with you,” Murphy agreed doggedly. 
“Td rather drown than be starved to death.” 

So they held to their course and traveled 
straight toward the great black swamp. It might 
have looked like courage to an onlooker, but they 
themselves knew that it was desperation. If it 
happened to be a narrow one they would get 
through all right ; if it was a wide one, well — they 
probably could not do much better by trying to 
get around. 


193 


SCOTT BURTON 


They were not more than a hundred yards 
from the swamp when Scott stopped with an ex- 
clamation of surprise. They had come upon a 
distinct trail angling across their course. There 
were no footprints in it now, but it was a broad 
trail such as people make, and showed evidence 
of having been considerably used at no very dis- 
tant date. 

‘‘What do you suppose that is?’’ Scott asked 
wonderingly. 

Murphy looked at it with little interest. He 
could not eat it and he no longer had any interest 
in anything unless it gave promise of dinner. 
“Leads down to that logging camp unless my 
geography is crooked and we might as well fol- 
low it to the swamp. It’s going our way.” 

“Maybe it goes through the swamp,” Scott sug- 
gested with a flash of hope. “Wonder where 
those fellows did get their supplies from? I 
should think they would have been afraid to get 
them from the river boats. It would have made 
their place too conspicuous.” 

They followed the trail with curiosity even if 
without much hope and saw it duck into the heavy 
brush. As he ducked in after it Scott uttered a 


194 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

shout of triumph. There was a boat chained to 
a tree at the end of the trail. Like the trail it 
was far from new but showed signs of use at a 
comparatively recent date. 

Murphy's spirits came up with a bound. 
“Well," he exclaimed, “this is the first piece of 
real luck we have had in some time. That boat 
looks almost as good to me as a loaf of bread." 

The question of ownership never entered their 
heads. They had been in dire need of a boat and 
Providence had provided one. There were no 
questions asked. There were no oars, but Mur- 
phy cut a pole with his hunting knife and they 
were soon skimming over the water merrily. 

“Set your course due north, boy, and point it 
out to me, that's all I ask!" he exclaimed, as he 
heaved away on the pole. “That swamp water 
does not look so bad from a boat, does it?" 

They had gone with one bound from the dumps 
of despair to the summit of hope and they were 
so happy they felt silly. They had not realized 
how worried they really were. Now nothing 
seemed impossible. They felt perfectly confident 
that all their troubles were over and they would 
IQS 


SCOTT BURTON 


soon be at headquarters reporting their great dis- 
covery. 

They were well out in the swamp, probably a 
half mile or more when Murphy gave a shout and 
redoubled his efforts with the pole. Scott thought 
he had sighted dry land again and stood up in the 
boat to see. Instead of land it was a house built 
up on piles in the middle of the swamp. 

‘‘Surely no one lives in that house away out 
there!'' Scott exclaimed. 

“Probably not," Murphy replied cheerfully; 
“but there may be something to eat in it just the 
same." And he headed for the house. 

There was no smoke coming out of the chim- 
ney and nothing to show that it was occupied or 
had been for some time. The porch in front of 
it was really a landing with steps coming down 
to the water. They shouted but there was no an- 
swer. Scott thought they were wasting time in 
stopping there at all, but Murphy was determined 
to see if there was anything there to eat. He 
declared that he would never forgive himself if 
he passed it up now and found out later that there 
was food in it. 

They tied the boat to the steps and went to the 
196 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

door. Murphy pushed it open gently and looked 
in. It was rather dark inside and it was a fe-w 
minutes before their eyes became accustomed to 
the half light. Then things loomed up plainly and 
Murphy uttered a shout of satisfaction. The 
shelves all along one corner of the building were 
piled with provisions of all kinds. A number of 
bunks were built against the wall at the other 
end of the building, but they paid very little atten- 
tion to that except to glance at them to make sure 
there was no one there. Their interest was cen- 
tered in those shelves. 

“Whew !” Murphy whistled as he gloated over 
the great store of provisions, “wouldn’t we have 
been sore if we had passed this up ? I don’t know 
who lives here, but I am going to have one full 
meal on him whoever he is. Gee ! he has enough 
stuff here to stand a siege of six months.” 

“Strange!” Scott pondered as he looked over 
the supplies. “It does not look as though any one 
had lived here for several months at least and yet 
these provisions are all fresh and could not have 
been here such a great while. This looks like an 
old house on the outside but from the looks of 
197 


SCOTT BURTON 

the floors I don’t believe it has ever been lived in 
much. I don’t understand it.” 

‘T am not going to try to understand it till I 
have had my fill of this bacon and flapjacks. 
What do you want, tea or coffee? He, whoever 
he is, has them both here.” Murphy did not seem 
to care whether the provisions belonged to man or 
devil, and felt that the mystery could wait for a 
solution till he had satisfied his appetite. 

Scott built a fire in the stove for Murphy and 
then returned to look things over some more. 
Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of such pro- 
found astonishment that even Murphy paused in 
his cooking to see what had happened. Scott had 
found a sales slip wrapped up with one of the 
bundles and the groceries listed on it were 
charged to Mr. Roberts. 

“By cracky!” Scott exclaimed, looking at Mur- 
phy with eyes round with surprise, “I have it. 
This is the very cabin where those fellows are 
coming to hide. They keep it stocked up for just 
such an emergency.” 

The fact that they had walked into the very 
den of the scoundrels who had been out gunning 
for them all the night before and were probably 
198 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

even then on their way there startled them a little 
at first. But nothing could divert Murphy’s at- 
tention from his frying pan for very long. 

‘‘Oh, well,” he said philosophically, “we have 
their boat, so they are not likely to get here be- 
fore we have finished dinner. Nothing could stop 
me from eating now ; it would take more than that 
outfit to spoil my appetite.” 

A little chuckle of satisfaction died on Scott’s 
lips. It would be a good joke on the thieves to 
find their boat gone just when they needed it, but 
where would they go if they could not get to the 
hiding place they had prepared ? They might get 
suspicious and go somewhere else where no trace 
could be found of them. 

“I wonder if they have another boat any- 
where ?” he exclaimed. “I wish we had not taken 
this one.” 

“Don’t worry,” Murphy replied as he chewed a 
piece of half-cooked bacon, “I don’t think they 
would be likely to abandon a place which they 
have prepared and fixed up the way they have this 
one. At least they would not give it up so easily.” 

“No use in worrying about it now, anyway. 
We can’t take the boat back without running too 
199 


SCOTT BURTON 


much risk and any damage we have done cannot 
be helped. We'll eat all of their grub we can and 
then beat it on across the swamp. We will get 
Qualley when he comes back to the camp and I 
have a sneaking idea that it would not take much 
to make him tell on the other fellows.’' 

‘‘Any one of them would hang all the others 
for a plugged nickel,” Murphy growled contemp- 
tuously. 

So they made the best of their opportunities 
and gave no further thought to the future trouble 
they might be piling up for themselves. There 
was unlimited food and for a long time there 
seemed to be no end to their appetites, but they 
were satisfied at last and stretched out on a 
couple of the benches in supreme contentment. 

“Gee!” Murphy exclaimed, “Tm full right up 
to my Adam’s apple and I’d like to stay right here 
and sleep for a week.” 

But instead of sleeping they both sat suddenly 
bolt upright and stared wide-eyed at each other. 
The sound of voices came to them very distinctly. 


CHAPTER XIX 


F or at least a minute neither of the boys 
spoke. They knew that Roberts and his 
gang had planned on coming there to the 
cabin that morning, but it had not occurred to 
them that they could be there so soon. More- 
over, they had rather taken it for granted that 
they had possession of the only boat in the swamp. 

Scott realized now that he had been grossly 
careless. There was no possible justification for 
their staying in that cabin after they learned 
whose it was and knew that the others were plan- 
ning on coming there. He was filled with re- 
morse now and would have given anything to be 
out of the scrape, but it was too late. They were 
trapped like a couple of rats and the ferrets were 
rapidly approaching the only possible way out. 
Scott fairly groaned. Possibly they would not 
get out and no news would ever reach the outside 
world as to what had become of them, but if the 
truth should ever become known it was madden- 


201 


SCOTT BURTON 


ing to think that they would be reported as hav- 
ing lost out on a most important mission through 
carelessness and a few hours of hunger. 

But trapped and hopelessly outnumbered as 
they knew themselves to be they had no idea of 
giving up without a struggle. Scott slipped noise- 
lessly from the bench and grabbed an iron bar 
which was leaning against the door frame and 
was evidently intended to bar the door. 

‘‘Get that ax-handle over there in the corner/^ 
he whispered to Murphy, “and take your place on 
the other side of the door. We’ll get as many of 
them as we can. I’ll take the first one who comes 
in the door and you take the next.” 

They took up their stations and waited grimly 
with nerves on edge. They expected every in- 
stant to hear the boat bump the landing and the 
thud of feet on the steps. But they did not come. 
The suspense was terrific. Suddenly Scott re- 
membered their boat tied to the landing. No 
wonder they did not land. They knew that there 
were strangers within and probably suspected 
who it was. They were probably holding a coun- 
cil of war now to determine the best method of 


202 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

attack, for they would not know that the boys 
had lost their guns in the quicksands. 

Scott felt that he must know what was going on 
at all hazards and he slipped cautiously over to 
the window in the front of the cabin and peeped 
out. At first he could see nothing and thought 
they must have gone around to the other side, 
but just as he was turning away a moving object 
quite a distance off in the swamp caught his eye. 
It was two darkies in a bateau^addling straight 
away from the cabin. He heaved a sigh of re- 
lief. For the moment they were saved. The next 
instant he realized what it meant and groaned 
inwardly. 

‘There goes the news !’’ he exclaimed bitterly, 
as he pointed out the rapidly disappearing boat 
to Murphy. ‘Tt may be a long chase now before 
we ever locate those fellows again, if we ever find 
them.” 

“Oh, we’ll find them all right when the time 
comes,” Murphy replied cheerfully. “The thing 
to do now is to get out of this trap as fast as we 
know how before any one else comes. If we can 
get away Fm not worrying about the rest of it.” 

Scott realized the wisdom of the suggestion, 
203 


SCOTT BURTON 


but he thought it best to cover up their tracks as 
best they could. They quickly straightened up 
the cabin, put everything as nearly as they could 
just as they had found it, took one cautious glance 
around the swamp and hurried out to their boat. 
They half expected to hear a shot from the back 
of the cabin. There was no window on that side 
of the house and they had no assurance that there 
had not been two bateaux, one of which might be 
lying in wait for them. But there was no sound 
and a hurried survey discovered no boat in sight. 

“Now for it!’’ Murphy exclaimed, bending to 
his pole with all his might. “I wouldn’t stop to 
eat anywhere else before I get to headquarters if 
I was starving.” 

They did not realize how badly they had been 
scared in that cabin till they found how hard they 
were working to get away from it. They were 
headed due north by the compass and going as' 
fast as they could. Scott had caught up a fish- 
ing pole off the landing and was doing his best to 
help. It was not till they were far out of sight of 
the cabin that they relaxed a little in their efforts. 
They were at least a mile from the south edge of 
204 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


the swamp and still there was no intimation that 
they were approaching the other side. 

‘'Good thing we found this boat/^ Murphy com- 
mented ; “we’d have drowned before this if we had 
tried to cross this place without it.” 

Scott did not reply. He was wondering how 
far it was from the north edge of the swamp to 
the railroad track and how long it would be be- 
fore they could get a train going in their direc- 
tion. When he had discovered the log canal and 
the hidden mill he had thought his work in Florida 
was about completed, and successfully completed. 
The scare at the cabin had showed him how easy 
it would be for him to fail completely even yet. 
He was anxious now to get back to headquarters 
and place his information where it would be safe. 

They had covered at least another mile and 
were beginning to think that the swamp must ex- 
tend clear up into Georgia when they began to 
see some signs of land ahead. They were coming 
to a fringe of dense underbrush and behind it 
they could see the tops of pine trees. In a few 
minutes they were standing on solid ground once 
more with an open pine forest stretching away 
to the northward as far as they could see. 

205 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘Well, it can’t be more than a hundred miles 
from here to the railroad!” Murphy exclaimed. 
“Let’s go.” 

They were both anxious to get out of that un- 
known country where so many unexpected things 
seemed to happen to them, and set out at a lively 
pace. The country continued to be dry and open,, 
but it was at least two hours before they saw any 
sign of life or a road or anything else which would 
indicate that they were anywhere near civiliza- 
tion. Then they sighted a little cabin far ahead 
of them in the woods. Smoke was curling from 
the chimney and two men were leaning on the 
front fence with their backs toward them. 

Scott decided that there could be no danger in 
approaching these people who could not possibly 
know anything about them and he wanted to learn 
the shortest way to the railroad. They advanced 
in silence and their feet made no sound in the 
soft sand. The men in the yard turned out to be 
a couple of darkies and they seemed to be en- 
joying some huge joke. Their laughter broke out 
in an almost continuous high-pitched cackle and 
they were having altogether too good a time to 
pay any attention to the approach of strangers. 

206 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

In fact, strangers were so rare in that section that 
no one ever thought of seeing one. The boys 
were not very far from the cabin when one of 
the darkies roared between his gusts of laughter, 
“No, suh, you won't ketch me tryin’ to steal no 
grub out of dat cabin ag'in. A little mo’ and we’d 
a~walked right in on ’em and you know what Mist’ 
Roberts said de las’ time he ketched us out dere. 
No, suh. I’ll buy my grub fust.” 

Scott stopped in astonishment and stared at 
Murphy. So that was what had scared them so 
at the cabin; only a couple of darkies trying to 
steal some of the supplies. And Roberts had not 
learned anything of their whereabouts, nor was 
he likely to from these fellows. It was the first 
cheerful news he had had for some time. 

Murphy cleared his throat loudly and the two 
darkies jumped almost out of their skins and 
looked as though they were about to run away. 
The sight of the two forest service uniforms did 
not seem to reassure them. The weight of a 
guilty conscience made them nervous. 

“Say, boy,” Murphy called to reassure them, 
for he was familiar enough with darkies to know 
that if they were frightened there would be no 
207 


SCOTT BURTON 


hope of getting the truth out of them about any- 
thing, ‘‘which is the nearest road to the railroad 
station ?” 

It took the darky a moment to recover from his 
fright, but the terror died from his face when he 
realized that the stranger had not said anything 
about robbing a cabin and he grinned respect- 
fully. “Dat de road right deah, boss, de ain't no 
otheh." 

“How far is it?" 

“Fo' miles, suh. Leastways dat's what dey calls 
it around heah." 

Murphy wanted to ask what station it was but 
he did not want to acknowledge that he was as 
completely lost as all that. So they took the little 
used track in the sand which the darky had digni- 
fied by the name of a road and walked on as 
though they were perfectly satisfied and knew 
just where they were going. There was one 
thing they did know. They knew that they had 
furnished the darkies with a subject of conversa- 
tion which would keep them busy for some time 
to come. 

Like most estimates of distance in the coun- 
try the “fo' miles" proved to be rather a rough 
208 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

guess and it was pretty well along in the after- 
noon when they came in sight of the three or 
four houses which composed the railroad town. 
The few people who were in sight eyed them curi- 
ously when they walked into the station. They 
were too far from the forest for any one to recog- 
nize their service uniforms and every one took 
them for soldiers. 

There was no train till ten o’clock that night. 
It seemed as though they had eaten enough of 
Roberts’ supplies out there in the swamp to last 
them for a week, but they were hungry again al- 
ready and walked over to the store to get some 
crackers and cheese for supper. The storekeeper 
asked them so many questions that they had a 
hard time eating their lunch after they had bought 
it, but it at least gave Scott a chance to ask a few 
questions in return. 

‘Tsn’t there a Mr. Roberts living somewhere 
around here?” he asked casually. 

'‘He don’t exactly live around heah, suh, but 
he does his buyin’ heah. He operates a sawmill 
down to the south of heah. Fine gentleman, 
suh.” 

Scott reserved his opinion about the qualities of 
209 


SCOTT BURTON 


the gentleman in question, but Murphy could not 
suppress a very audible snort of contempt. They 
picked up what little information they could 
about the sawmill, which was not much, and 
strolled outside to wait for the train. They felt 
fairly safe here, but they would feel safer out- 
side where it was dark. 


CHAPTER XX 


S COTT and Murphy walked out to a little 
grove of pines a short distance from the 
station and sat down in the shadow to wait 
for the train. They did not talk much, for each 
one was too busy thinking over the scrapes they 
had been through. They felt that they were 
through with their troubles at last and that it 
was only a matter of a few hours now till they 
would be back at headquarters, on familiar 
ground and safe from interference, but they had 
felt that same way so often before that they were 
almost afraid to say anything about it now. 

Their appearance had caused a great deal of 
speculation and gossip among the loafers around 
the place and many curious glances were thrown 
in their direction, but no one came near them. 
The train was late as usual, but it came at last 
and they climbed aboard with a certain feeling of 
relief. There might be a wreck but there would 
not be any quicksands or swamps and a wreck 


2II 


SCOTT BURTON 


seemed rather trivial compared with those two 
things which they had come to hate so cordially 
in the past few days. 

‘Well, we are on the home stretch now,’’ Scott 
exclaimed comfortably. 

“Yes,” Murphy retorted, “for the first time in 
what seems like a century we know where we are 
going and how we are going to get there.” 

The train stopped at the first station. There 
did not seem to be much of an excuse for a station 
there, nor anywhere else along the line for that 
matter, but the train always stopped at all of them 
as if it hoped that sometime there might be some- 
body there. This time it was not disappointed. 
Scott was looking out of the window and he saw 
a lone man step across the platform and get on 
the front end of the car. No one else was in 
sight there, not even a station agent. 

Before he had drawn in his head he felt Mur- 
phy grab him suddenly by the knee and squeeze 
it meaningly. He looked inquiringly at Murphy 
and then followed his glance up the car. The new 
passenger was walking slowly toward them and 
he instantly recognized Qualley. The car lamps 
evidently dazzled Qualley’s eyes after his wait in 


212 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

the darkness and he had not seen them, but just as 
he was turning into a seat he stopped for a glance 
over the occupants of the car and recognized 
them. With well-feigned surprise he changed his 
mind about the seat and came towards them, 
smiling. 

‘‘Blamed old fox Murphy growled under his 
breath. “If he knew what we know he would 
have kept off this train.’’ 

“Well,” Qualley exclaimed good-humoredly, 
shaking hands with them, “I didn’t expect to see 
any one I knew on this train. Glad to see you. 
Good ways from home, aren’t you?” 

“Quite a jump,” Scott replied. “We’ve been 
out having a look at the country. Quite a journey 
for you, too, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, first time I have been out of camp for a 
long time. Company wanted me to come down 
here and look over some turpentine prospects. 
They are thinking of leasing in here.” 

“Aren’t you afraid they will take advantage of 
your absence to steal all the logs in the pond?” 
Scott asked, and he nudged Murphy secretly with 
his foot. 

“You bet I was,” Qualley replied with a hearty 
213 


SCOTT BURTON 


laugh, ‘‘and I told the boys not to put any in there 
while I was gone. Haven’t run on to any likely 
clues yet, have you?” he added. 

‘‘No, nothing new since we saw you last,” and 
Scott nudged Murphy again. They were having 
a very good time with Qualley. 

As they approached their own station Murphy 
seemed to grow thoughtful. Suddenly he leaned 
forward and unbuttoned the flap of Qualley’s 
holster. “What sort of a gun have you got there, 
Qualley? I lost my old Luger back there in a 
swamp. Had it for ten years and would not have 
lost it for a farm.” 

Murphy drew the revolver from the holster 
and examined it critically. It was a little blue 
steel automatic .32, very neat and very business- 
like. “Not quite such a hard hitter as mine,” 
Murphy commented, “but I guess she’d kill a man 
at that.” 

“Would it!” Qualley laughed. “Well, I rather 
think it would if you hit him right. I killed a 
deer with it at forty yards last fall.” 

Murphy continued to toy with the gun. He 
unloaded it, loaded it, and tested the mechanism 
several times, tried the grip in his hand and aimed 
214 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

it carefully at all the lights in the car. It was 
not till the train was coming to a stop at their 
own station that he leaned over and slipped it 
back into Qualley’s holster. 

“Looks pretty good to me/’ Murphy remarked, 
as though thoroughly satisfied with his examina- 
tion. “Maybe I’ll get one of those next time. It 
would not be as heavy to tote around as the old 
Luger and I reckon it would shoot hard enough 
for anything I want it for. Don’t want to sell it, 
do you?” 

“Not for anything you would give me for it,” 
Qualley replied. “I need it in my business almost 
every day.” 

“That’s right,” Murphy admitted thoughtfully, 
“I reckon you do, all right,” and he stepped on 
Scott’s foot. 

They all three got off the car together and 
started down the trail which lead by a short cut 
to the supervisor’s headquarters. It was about 
midnight and there was no one in sight around 
the station, not even the agent. The moon was 
doing its best to shine through a thin curtain of 
clouds and the trail was easy enough to follow. 
They walked three abreast through the open 

215 


SCOTT BURTON 


country and were soon back on the one subject 
of conversation which had been the common topic 
with them now for over two years — the marvel- 
ous disappearance of those logs. 

About a mile from the station the trail crossed 
a rather wide neck of shallow swamp. In a rainy 
year it would have been impassable, but it was 
almost dry now and made, very good walking. It 
suddenly occurred to Scott that Qualley was not 
going in the direction of his camp. ‘‘Doesn’t this 
trail take you a good way out of your road?” he 
asked. 

“About a mile, but this is the only place where 
there is a trail across the swamp and I have never 
had the energy to cut another.” 

When the trail entered the swamp it narrowed 
so that they were obliged to go in single file. 
Murphy stopped to let Qualley go first, but he 
politely held back and insisted on them leading 
the way. Murphy smiled a little to himself, 
shoved Scott gently into the lead and followed 
with Qualley bringing up the rear. Conversation 
was not so easy now and they walked in compara- 
tive silence. The ground was so soft and spongy 
that their feet made very little noise and every 
216 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


little sound was easily heard. It was so dark in 
the swamp that only the outline of things could 
be seen. 

They were about in the middle of the swamp 
when Murphy heard a faint sound for which he 
had been listening intently ever since they had 
strung out on the narrow trail. It was a gentle 
slap caused by the falling of a leather flap. He 
listened now even more intently and was almost 
immediately rewarded by a sharp click close be- 
hind him. 

‘What was that?'’ he exclaimed, whirling 
about. 

Scott stopped and turned around to see what 
was going on and was just in time to see Murphy 
strike Qualley a crashing blow on the jaw before 
he even had a chance to answer the question. 

“Ah, ha, you old fox!” Murphy exclaimed, as 
he leaned over the fallen man, “I was a little too 
smart for you that time. That's a fine gun you 
have, but it is not much good without cartridges. 
Just wait till I load her up and then she will work 
better.” He picked the gun up from the soft 
ground where Qualley had dropped it, and taking 
217 


SCOTT BURTON 


a clip of cartridges from his pocket he calmly 
proceeded to load it. 

‘WhaCs the trouble?” Scott asked. The whole 
thing had occurred so suddenly that he had not 
been able to comprehend it. He had been busy 
planning out the best method of attacking that 
cabin. 

Murphy explained it as coolly as though noth- 
ing had happened. 

‘Tt occurred to me back there in the train that 
it might not be altogether safe to be in the woods 
with this fellow alone at night when he knew 
where we were, so I unloaded his gun. When 
he came down this way with us to cross the 
swamp I knew that there was something up, for 
it would have been nearer for him to have walked 
up the railroad track a way and then cut across. 
Didn’t you notice how polite I was when I tried 
to persuade him to walk ahead of me through 
this swamp? Never knew me to be that polite 
before, did you? And when he turned out to be 
more polite than I was, I knew just exactly what 
to expect. I heard the flap of his holster flip 
down when he drew his gun and I heard her click 
218 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

when he pulled the trigger. I was afraid he 
might run away and reload so I dropped him.” 

Scott shuddered. He realized how closely he 
had rubbed shoulders with cold-blooded murder 
and how easily it could have been carried out if 
it had not been for Murphy’s forethought. 
“Must have taken some nerve to let him pull that 
trigger when you knew just what he was doing. 
Weren’t you afraid that he might have re- 
loaded ?” 

“Believe me, I’ve been watching him ever since 
we got oif the train. I knew that he could not 
reload without my hearing him and I sure lis- 
tened.” 

Qualley groaned and looked about him uncer- 
tainly like a man awakening from a dream and 
trying to get his wits together. Suddenly it came 
to him and he sat up with a jerk. 

“This what you are looking for?” Murphy 
asked mockingly, as he poked the muzzle of the 
gun into his face. “Don’t monkey with it, it’s 
loaded now.” 

Qualley realized instantly that he had been 
outwitted. He could not for the life of him think 
how they had been lead to suspect him and he 
219 


SCOTT BURTON 


was a little bit dazed by the unexpected blow, but 
his magnificent nerve was unshaken. He looked 
quietly into the muzzle of the gun with unmoved 
expression. 

‘Tretty clever,” he exclaimed admiringly, ‘‘but 
what is the big idea? You swipe the loads out of 
my gun, and then when I try to shoot an alligator 
you whirl around and knock me down without 
warning. If it is supposed to be a joke you are 
carrying it a little too far.” He was a splendid 
actor and if Scott had not had such good evidence 
of his intentions he would have doubted himself 
rather than this indignant Qualley. 

“It’s a good bluff, Qualley,” Murphy jeered, 
“but it won’t work. You can sue me for assault 
if you want to when you get out of the pen, but it 
is too late to sit here in the swamp and argue 
about it to-night. Get up from there and trot 
along with us. It’s nearer to headquarters than 
it is to your camp and I know Mr. Graham will 
be glad to put you up there over night. We’ll 
tell Roberts that we reached camp all right so 
you need not worry about his thinking that you 
have gone back on him. Come ahead. It was 
mighty polite of you to let me go first back there, 
220 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

but this time I am going to show the politeness. 
After you, Gaston. Better take the rear, Scott, 
I don’t want to take a chance on plugging you if 
he should make a break for it. Now we’re right. 
Let’s travel.” 

Qualley knew that it was hopeless to try to bluff 
them now and he took the lead without another 
word. The little procession was more silent now 
than it had been before and the grin on Murphy’s 
face was wider. 


CHAPTER XXI 


I T was about one o’clock in the morning when 
they finally reached headquarters. Hardly 
a word had been spoken since the argument 
in the swamp. Scott opened the door and struck 
a light while Murphy guarded the prisoner. 
Scarcely was the lamp lighted than Mr. Graham 
appeared in the doorway in his pajamas. 

“Well, by George !” he exclaimed, as he grasped 
Scott’s hand, “here you are at last. I have 
scoured the woods from Dan to Beersheba and 
was just about to order out a searching party to- 
morrow. Where under the sun have you been ?” 

“Scouring the woods same as you have,” Scott 
laughed, “but I guess Murphy can tell you better 
where we have been than I can. I did not know 
where we were most of the time. Come on in, 
Murphy, and bring your friend with you.” 

The screen door opened and Qualley walked in 
closely followed by Murphy. He may have been 
very much humiliated, but it did not show in his 


222 


SCOTT BURTON 

face. He seemed to be the coolest one in the 
bunch. 

‘Why, hello, Qualley!” Mr. Graham exclaimed 
cordially. “I did not know that you were with 
the boys. Mrs. Murphy told me that you had 
gone with Burton,’’ he continued, shaking Mur- 
phy by the hand, “but she did not say anything 
about Qualley.” 

“Guess she did not know about him,” Scott 
grinned, “he joined us later.” 

“Well, let’s hear about it. Did you find any 
clue?” 

“This one,” Scott answered, motioning toward 
Qualley; and at the same time Mr. Graham no- 
ticed the pistol in Murphy’s hand. 

“What!” he cried in astonishment, “do you 
mean to say that this man is connected with the 
robbery ?” 

“Funny, isn’t it?” Murphy remarked. “First 
time I ever heard of a fellow robbing himself, in- 
forming on himself, and then helping to catch 
himself.” 

Mr. Graham was too much astonished to say a 
word. He simply stared at Qualley open- 
223 


SCOTT BURTON 


mouthed. At last he recovered sufficiently to 
repeat his request to Scott to tell him about it. 

Scott told the whole story of the long search 
through the swamp, the trip to the mill, the dis- 
appearance of the logs from the raft, the discov- 
ery of the canal, the elaborate plan that had been 
developed to manufacture the logs and dispose 
of the lumber, and all the wild adventures they 
had after they met the strangers at old St. 
Joseph’s. 

Mr. Graham listened quietly, commenting or 
asking a question now and then when some point 
was not quite clear. He had heard of the mill 
which was shipping from the old port at St. 
Joseph’s but he had never dreamed of connecting 
it in any way with the disappearance of the logs 
from his own forest. He seemed rather amused 
and very much elated over the whole thing till 
Scott described Qualley’s attempt to murder them 
in the swamp on the way over from the station. 
Then his face suddenly hardened and he glared 
at Qualley with anything but a pleasant expres- 
sion. 

‘'So you would be a murderer as well as a 
thief,” he exclaimed contemptuously. 

224 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

Qualley did not seem to be in the least abashed. 
‘‘Now let me explain a few things to you, Mr. 
Graham, before you get a wrong impression of 
this thing. The story which these boys tell 
sounds reasonable enough and I have no doubt 
they think it is true, but they are altogether mis- 
taken.’' 

Murphy gave a contemptuous grunt and Scott 
looked his indignation, but Qualley ignored them 
completely. 

“First, in regard to this ridiculous story of my 
attempting to murder them. I might rather say 
that they attempted to murder me. I happened 
to remember that Murphy had been examining 
my revolver on the train ; I had seen him load it 
and unload it once or twice and I thought that I 
better make sure that it was in working order. I 
took it out to examine it and just then Murphy 
whirled around and knocked me down without the 
slightest warning. When I came to he had my 
gun and made me come along here with him.” 

“Sure I whirled and knocked ye down,” Mur- 
phy commented with an air of comfortable satis- 
faction. “I’d been listening for that same little 
22S 


SCOTT BURTON 


click ever since I heard you talking over your 
murderous plans down there on the beach/’ 

‘Tor that I don’t blame them,” Qualley went on 
plausibly. ‘T admit that I had a knowledge of 
what was going on over there at that mill all the 
time, but my connection with them was not crimi- 
nal. Roberts was very bitter against them be- 
cause he knew that his share of the business would 
take him to the penitentiary if he were caught 
and the wallop Mr. Burton gave him there on the 
beach made him worse. I had nothing against 
the boys and wanted to protect them, but I could 
not let Roberts see that I did. Consequently I 
pretended to be as bitter and bloodthirsty as any 
of them. I saw them in the swamp there when I 
was talking to Roberts beside the creek, but I did 
not show them to Roberts. He would have shot 
them there like dogs.” 

“Sounds fine,” Scott remarked sarcastically, 
“but it’s a wonder you did not say anything about 
all this when you met us on the train.” 

“The public train is not a very good place to 
talk over such matters as that,” Qualley an- 
swered with dignity. 

“Qualley,” Mr. Graham remarked good- 
226 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

humor edly, ‘‘Fll have to admit that you are about 
the smoothest villain I have ever seen, and I have 
to admire both your nerve and your ingenuity, 
but I am afraid you will have to tell these things 
to the judge.” 

But Qualley had not yet come to the end of his 
wiles. ‘‘Wouldn’t it be better, Mr. Graham, to 
get hold of the men who were in active charge of 
this robbery, all of them, rather than to prosecute 
one man who was only remotely connected with 
the thing and let all the others go ? I know where 
those fellows are and can tell you just how you 
may take them. Otherwise you cannot find them 
in a thousand years. Promise me my freedom 
and I will not only do this but will tell you all the 
details of their crime. A clean sweep.” 

Mr. Graham gave him a look of unutterable 
contempt. “No, Qualley, I still have hopes of 
being able to find the others myself, but even if I 
could not I think I would rather prosecute one 
Judas like you than turn you loose for the sake 
of catching the others.” 

“Suit yourself,” Qualley said with a shrug, 
“but let me know when you find the others. 
That’s all.” 


227 


SCOTT BURTON 

‘'Oh Scott exclaimed with a grin, “I guess I 
forgot to say that we stumbled on to the cabin 
out in the swamp that Roberts had all stocked up 
with provisions ready for just such an emer- 
gency as this and I have no doubt that it is the 
one to which Mr. Qualley referred when he sug- 
gested that the rest of them should hide in the 
cabin in the swamp till they heard from him that 
it would be safe to leave there.” 

“Perhaps it is,” Qualley remarked dryly. He 
had evidently exhausted his resources for he had 
nothing more to say. 

After a few moments of silence Mr. Graham 
came to a decision. He glanced at his watch. It 
was a little after two. “We could call up the 
sheriff, I suppose, and might be able to wake him 
up in the course of time, but it would be a long 
time before he could get here. So I guess you 
boys had better go to sleep here and Pll take this 
gentleman over to the sheriff.” 

The boys protested that they were both Villing 
and able to finish the job which they had started, 
but Mr. Graham would not hear of it. 

“Nothing doing,” Tie said in response to their 
plea. “ITl see that you get full credit for all that 
228 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


you have done, but I know from your account of 
your adventures since you left here that you have 
not had half a night's sleep. To-morrow we shall 
have to go after the rest of this bunch and that 
may mean a pretty hard day's work. No, I want 
you to stay here and rest up. I've already had 
about four hours' sleep to-night." 

They recognized the wisdom of this advice, but 
it was hard to miss the satisfaction of seeing 
Qualley actually put under arrest. 

Mr. Graham was soon dressed and ready to 
start. He took the pistol from Murphy and 
turned to Qualley. ‘‘All right, Qualley, let's go. 
You fellows see how hard you can sleep till I get 
back. You may need all you can get, for now 
that we have a line on these fellows I am not 
going to stop till I have every one of them behind 
the bars where they belong." 

Qualley made one more try. “It might be 
healthier here in the future," he remarked, “if I 
was not included in this bunch." 

Mr. Graham turned upon him angrily and 
glared at him for a minute. Then he burst out 
laughing. “You must be losing your nerve, 
Qualley, or your senses, if you think that you 
229 


SCOTT BURTON 


can scare me with a threat. I thought that you 
knew me better than that. Move along and Fll 
put you where I will not even have to think about 
you, to say nothing of being afraid of you.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


I T seemed to Scott that he had scarcely closed 
his eyes when he heard the screen door bang 
and Mr. Graham was standing in the door- 
way. 

‘Well, well,’’ he laughed, “still pounding your 
ears ? I guess you did not get even as much sleep 
as I said.” 

Scott glanced curiously at his watch and then 
listened to see if it was running. It was three- 
thirty. “Thirteen hours,” he gasped in astonish- 
ment. 

“Humph,” Murphy grunted, “that’s nothing. 
I’ll bet I could do it again right now.” 

“Might as well try it if that is the way you feel 
about it,” Mr. Graham laughed. “It’s so late 
now that there is no use in our starting till morn- 
ing.” 

“Oh, that is not the reason,” Mr. Graham as- 
sured Scott when he noticed his crestfallen look. 
“I’m mean enough to have called you at five 
231 


SCOTT BURTON 


o’clock if I had been here to do it, but I just this 
minute got back. The sheriff was not at home 
and I thought I’d better escort our friend straight 
to the jail myself. I did not feel as though I 
wanted to trust anybody as slick as he has proved 
himself to be to any sheriff’s woodshed for safe- 
keeping. That is what the sheriff’s wife sug- 
gested.” 

“There will not be any chance of his getting 
word to those other fellows, will there?” Scott 
asked anxiously. 

“No, I think not. I impressed it on the warden 
pretty hard that he was not to be allowed to 
communicate with any one in any way. I hinted 
that Uncle Sam was very much interested in his 
guest’s welfare and he seemed to take it very 
seriously.” 

- “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go down there 
on the train this afternoon so that we would be 
on the ground early in the morning?” Scott asked. 
He was anxious to be doing something now that 
he was awake. 

“I thought of that,” Mr. Graham said, “but I 
do not want to take the chance. They might have 
some spies out who would take them the news and 
232 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

we would find the nest empty when we got there. 

I am not afraid of their running away so soon 
as this. You said they were planning on lying 
low there for a couple of weeks. They did not 
get there till yesterday afternoon, and they would 
hardly be getting nervous so early. Just how far 
is that cabin from the railroad station?'’ 

‘‘Must be about seven or eight miles, isn't it, 
Murphy?" 

“About that, I should say. I hope our swiping 
that boat did not scare them out." 

“By the way, what did you do with that boat ?" 

“Left it on the edge of the swamp where we . 
landed." 

“Well, it may make them suspicious, and it 
may possibly have been the only boat they had, 
but I do not think so. If they were long-headed 
enough to rig up that cabin in the swamp against 
a possible emergency like this I think they prob- 
ably arranged some pretty sure way of getting 
to it and the loss of a boat would not be likely to 
stop them." 

“They had some boats over in the canal," Scott 
said, “because I saw them there. They could 
carry them over there if they had to." 

23.3 


SCOTT BURTON 


‘We cannot do anything now but hope, any- 
way,’’ Mr. Graham remarked. “There is no use 
in worrying about it. But if you fellows are not 
going back to sleep right away I wish you would 
explain to me the exact location of that cabin and 
all its surroundings so that I will be familiar with 
the ground when we get there. Are you sure 
that you will be able to find it again?” 

“I don’t think there will be any trouble about 
that,” Scott answered confidently. “We ran a 
compass course straight north from it to where 
we left the boat and while it was not a very ac- 
curate course it ought to be straight enough ta 
find a house. I think that I can draw you a 
pretty good sketch of the whole layout.” 

So Scott, with occasional suggestions from 
Murphy, sketched the cabin and described it as 
accurately as he could. With this sketch as a 
basis Mr. Graham planned his campaign for the 
next day. He pored over it for several hours 
and it was not till some time after they had fin- 
ished their supper that he seemed satisfied that 
it was complete in every detail. He then folded 
the sketch up thoughtfully and arose with a yawn. 

“We shall have to catch that train at four in 


234 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


the morning/’ he said, ‘‘and if you fellows have 
any more sleep to make up you better be about 
it. I am going to bed now.” 

“So am I,” said Murphy. “I am not square 
with the world yet by about ten hours, but if we 
are not going till morning I am going home to 
let my wife know that I am still alive. I’ll meet 
you at the train. Anything in particular you 
want me to bring along?” 

“No, nothing except a shooting iron of some 
kind. You may have some use for that before 
we get those other rascals in the jug.” 

“There’s where I’ll miss my old Luger,” Mur- 
phy said sadly. “I wish I had it out of the bottom 
of that quicksand, but I guess I can manage. I 
feel as though I could hit one of those scoundrels 
with almost anything after the way they were 
longing for a shot at me.” 

With that Murphy started for home and Mr. 
Graham went in to bed. Scott sat on the porch 
for a little while alone and thought over the events 
which had crowded themselves so rapidly into the 
past few days. It was only a little over a week 
since he had been sitting on that same porch won- 
dering how he would ever accomplish what 

235 


SCOTT BURTON 


seemed to him then the almost impossible task 
which had been assigned him. Now almost as if 
by magic it had come suddenly to a successful 
conclusion. It would be an eminently successful 
conclusion if they could only capture the rest of 
the gang in the morning, but even if they did not 
get them they had discovered their secret, broken 
up their operations and jailed the ringleader. It 
could not exactly be called a failure. It had been 
a most interesting experience and promised to be 
even more so in the morning, but he hoped it 
would not lead him into any more assignments for 
detective work. He had made good twice largely 
through what he considered remarkably good 
luck, but he was afraid that he might fall down 
on the next one. 

He did not feel at all nervous at the prospect 
of going under fire the next day, but he was 
worried for fear Roberts and his gang would 
not be in their hiding place. He felt that he 
would .always reproach himself with his lack of 
foresight in taking that boat and possibly scaring 
them away. Under the circumstances there was 
not very much choice left to them, but he forgot 
2,^6 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

that now and thought only of the possible re- 
sults. 

‘‘Oh, well,'’ he exclaimed at last, “we shall 
know pretty quick in the morning and there is no 
use in worrying about it now,” and he followed 
Mr. Graham to bed. That gentleman evidently 
was not losing any sleep over the possibilities of 
the next day's work. He was sound asleep and 
snoring like a trooper. Scott soon joined in the 
chorus and any one passing by the cabin would 
have found it hard to believe that the two occu- 
pants knew they had to dislodge a band of des- 
perate men from a fortified cabin in the morn- 
ing. 

Had they known what was going on in the 
county jail at about that time they would prob- 
ably have not been quite so contented, at least they 
might not have snored quite so loudly. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


I N the county jail there was a madman, or one 
not very far from it. As long as Mr. Gra- 
ham was with him, Qualley had maintained 
his cool and indifferent air and had never for an 
instant given up the possibility of obtaining his 
release by some cunning scheme or inducement. 
He offered no resistance whatsoever and walked 
into the jail with the dignified mien of an injured 
and misjudged man. In fact he told Mr. Gra- 
ham that he was sorry to see him following this 
false scent because he knew that he was really a 
just man and would some day sorely regret his 
hasty action. 

It was so that Mr. Graham left him with no re- 
grets and an earnest request that the jailer watch 
his prisoner with the greatest caution because he 
was a bad one. He told him that on no account 
should the prisoner be allowed to communicate 
with any one on the outside because he was only 
238 


SCOTT BURTON 


one of a large gang and would probably make a 
desperate attempt to warn his friends. 

Left alone, a complete change came over Qual- 
ley. His studied dignity fell from him and the 
look of calm indifference gave way to a burning 
glare of hatred which contorted his whole face. 
He sprang to the window and watched Mr. Gra- 
ham’s shadowy form disappear into the darkness 
with the look of a wild beast glaring through the 
bars of its cage. 

When the last trace of the supervisor had died 
away Qualley seemed to lose all control of him- 
self and became a maniac. He shook the bars of 
his cell furiously, pounded the walls with his bare 
fists and cursed till he frothed at the mouth. The 
jailer came to quiet him but fled at the mere 
sight of him. It seemed that, unarmed as he 
was, he must break through those concrete walls 
and iron bars by the sheer fury of his efforts. 

The mood passed almost as suddenly as it had 
come upon him and he threw himself upon the 
bed panting from his exertions. ‘Tool,” he 
growled to himself, “where will that get you? 
They enjoy seeing you that way.” 

Calmly now he began to think over the situa- 

239 


SCOTT BURTON 


tion. He was caught and there was not much 
chance of his escape. There might possibly be 
some way out of that cell but it would not be by 
butting down the concrete wall with his head or 
biting oif the iron bars with his teeth. If he was 
to get out he must use his head but not in the way 
he had been using it a few minutes before. He 
was thoroughly ashamed of that. 

The first thing to do was to see if he could find 
a weapon or tool of any kind. There were sel- 
dom prisoners in that jail who were under a 
grave enough charge to make it worth their while 
really to try very hard to get out and the jailer 
might have become careless. He began a care- 
ful search of the room. The door was locked 
and seemed to be in good repair as near as he 
could tell in the dark. The bars in the window 
were not very heavy but they were too strong to 
break and they seemed to be firmly set in the con- 
crete. One of them rattled a little and the con- 
crete around the base of it seemed a little rough 
but it was solid enough. The floor was concrete 
like the walls. 

He dropped to his knees and crawled slowly 
over the floor. There were only two articles of 
240 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

furniture in the room, a small bed and a chair, 
both of wood. If he only had a piece of iron and 
they would give him enough time he felt sure 
that he could work out of one of those window 
bars. Even wood might do it in time, but he 
doubted if they would keep him there long 
enough. Nevertheless, it would be something to 
do and something to live for so he set to work 
to wrench one of the rounds out of the chair. 

The round came out easier than he had ex- 
pected and he tried a few tentative scratches on 
the concrete at the base of the bar. It raised a 
little dust, but he realized that it would mean 
long hours of labor before he could accomplish 
anything in that way, and there was something 
else which must be done at once. He did not give 
a rap for Roberts and, as Murphy had predicted, 
would have seen him hung without so much as 
raising a finger to help him. Moreover, he knew 
that Roberts in a like situation would never have 
done anything to help him. Just the same he 
was extremely anxious to get word to Roberts 
at all costs, not to save Roberts but to warn him 
that the Service men would be looking for him 
in the morning so that he would be well prepared. 

241 


SCOTT BURTON 


If Roberts could ambush them and murder them 
he, Qualley, would feel that his debt of hatred 
had been paid and, too, he might stand some show 
of getting free, for there was not any one else 
around there who knew anything about his 
crime or would be likely to prefer charges against 
him. Moreover, with Roberts captured, he would 
not stand any show at all. He very well knew 
that Roberts would tell everything he knew about 
him and would rather die than see Qualley get 
away if he could not make it himself. 

So the first thing to do was to get word to 
Roberts; there would be time enough for the 
digging when that was done. Perhaps he could 
catch somebody going by before the jailer was 
up. He took up his position by the window and 
watched patiently, but the jail was in an out-of- 
the-way place and he heard some one moving 
about in the jail before he had seen any one out- 
side. 

Well, possibly the jailer was not above a bribe. 
He had made plenty of money in the last two 
years out of the logs he had stolen, he was rich, 
and he could offer the jailer more money than he 
had ever dreamed of. He waited anxiously for 
242 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

some one to bring his breakfast. It was about 
eight o^clock when he heard a door open some- 
where and the jailer himself appeared with a 
tray. 

“Calmed down a little, have you?” the jailer 
asked, eyeing him somewhat doubtfully. 

“Yes,” Qualley admitted with a sheepish laugh, 
“I lost my head for a few minutes last night. It 
is enough to drive any man crazy to be popped 
into jail on a false charge with no chance to ex- 
plain. It’s tough.” 

“Yes,” the jailer agreed, “it’s tough all right 
if it’s true. The judge will straighten it out 
pretty quick if there is anything crooked about it, 
but that fellow is not much on making false 
charges, he isn’t.” 

“Well, he has slipped up this time. Didn’t even 
give me time to go over to the camp and tell them 
that I would not be back for a few days. If I 
could have given them a few directions it would 
have been all right ; as it is everything there will 
go to pot. A lumber camp won’t run itself.” 

“Maybe you will get bailed out in a couple of 
days.” 

“Sure I’ll get bailed out in a couple of days, but 

243 


SCOTT BURTON 

it is the next couple of days I am worrying about. 
Say, if I should put up five thousand dollars bail 
with you, couldn’t you let me slip over there for a 
day to straighten things out?” 

‘T’ll telephone the judge and ask him about 
it,” the man grinned. He seemed to think it was 
a very good joke, but a glance at his prisoner sent 
him hastily out the door, for there seemed to be 
strong indications that Qualley was going to 
throw another fit. But he managed to control 
himself quickly. 

“Well,” he said, as though he had resigned 
himself to the inevitable, “if you will not let me 
go myself, send me a messenger and I’ll have to 
do the best I can that way.” 

“Can’t do it, Mr. Qualley. They gave me strict 
orders that you were not to communicate with 
any one.” 

Qualley shrugged his shoulders and turned 
away as though satisfied that he had done his best 
and was no longer interested in what he could 
not avoid. There was only one more chance. 
Possibly he could attract the attention of some 
passer-by and get him to carry his message. As 
244 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

soon as the jailer had gone he took up his post 
at the window and watched. 

All day long, with the exception of the few 
minutes when the jailer was in there at meal- 
time, he watched with infinite patience and still 
no one came. The shadows were growing very 
long and another half-hour would bring on the 
sudden darkness of the southern evening. Grad- 
ually Qualley became aware of a faint tune whis- 
tled plaintively in the distance. It was the first 
sign of life he had caught outside the jail all 
day. He listened intently. The whistling was 
growing slightly louder. He knew from the 
plaintive twang to the music that it was a negro 
and he judged from the sound that the musician 
was on the road which passed beside the jail. 

Twice the whistling died out and he thought 
the man must have turned into another road, but 
it started up again, and after what seemed an age 
a shambling negro hove in sight. It was at least 
two hundred feet to the road and he was making 
such a noise with his whistling that there was no 
chance to attract his attention by any small sound. 

At first Qualley tried to catch his eye. He 
waved a large white handkerchief back and forth 
245 


SCOTT BURTON 


across the window, first slowly, then frantically. 
The darky was evidently not interested in white 
handkerchiefs. Moreover, he had already passed 
the line of the window and would soon be wholly 
out of reach. Qualley stuck two fingers in his 
mouth and blew one loud, shrill blast. The jailer 
would probably hear it, but he might not, and 
there was nothing to lose if he did. 

The darky heard it and stopped both his feet 
and his music. He looked curiously in the direc- 
tion of the jail. Qualley stuck the handkerchief 
through the bars and waved it. Then he beck- 
oned violently. The darky caught the signal and 
hesitated. On general principles he did not like 
to get too close to the jail, but he evidently thought 
this might be some comrade in distress and de- 
cided to investigate. He ambled rather aimlessly 
across the field, looking suspiciously to right and ‘ 
left, and finally brought up close to the window. 
Qualley recognized him as a man who had at one 
time worked at the camp and the man’s eyes grew 
big with astonishment when he recognized his old 
boss behind the bars. 

‘‘Listen, George,” Qualley whispered, “they 
have me jugged here on a false charge and I may 
246 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

not be able to get out for a couple of days. I’ll 
give you five dollars if you will take a note to Mr. 
Roberts to-night. He is out there in the cabin in 
the swamp. You have been there, haven’t you?” 

*‘No, suh,” George answered with suspicious 
promptness, ‘‘I ain’t nevah been to that place.” 

Qualley considered a moment. “Well, you 
know Sam Clark, don’t you ?” 

“Yes, suh, I knows him all right.” 

“Then you can find out from him how to find 
it. Will you take it?” 

“Can’t take it to-night, boss, but I kin git ovah 
deah with it powerful early in the morning.” 

“All right. Wait there a minute.” 

Qualley scribbled quickly on a scrap of paper, 
“They have pinched me. Coming after you in 
the morning. Be sure to get them.” He folded 
the paper and slipped it through the bars to 
George. “That must be there by daylight, 
George. I’ll pay you when I get out. The jailer 
has all my money now.” 

George hesitated. He usually did business on 
a cash basis. Moreover, he had known it to be 
a long time before some people had gotten out of 
that jail. 


247 


SCOTT BURTON 


Qualley knew what was the matter. “Here, 
keep this watch till I can pay you,’’ and he thrust 
his gold watch through the bars. 

George took the watch and Qualley settled 
down on the bed with a feeling of comfortable 
satisfaction when he heard the whistling start up 
again in the distance a few minutes later. It 
might not do him any good but he would have 
the satisfaction of knowing that somebody prob- 
ably would be shot. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


M r. graham had the conductor stop 
the train a mile from the station and 
they dropped off into the woods. 
‘'Thought it would be just as well not to stir them 
up down there at the station,” he explained. 
“They may have some scouts on the lookout.” 

Day was just breaking and they heard some 
wild turkeys gobbling over in the swamp. It was 
a tempting sound, but they were after bigger 
game this morning and held to their course at a 
round pace. Mr. Graham had explained his plan 
of campaign to them on the train and they trav- 
eled in silence now, each one busy with his own 
thoughts. 

Scott would have doubted his ability to find 
that bateau, but Murphy was a regular hound in 
the woods, and he walked to it as confidently as 
though he were walking down a broad highway. 
Now and then Scott recognized some landmark 
and knew that they were on the right course. 
249 


SCOTT BURTON 


He could run a compass line with the best of 
them but Murphy never used a compass unless 
he was surveying. When they came to the edge 
of the swamp he glanced about him a moment 
and nosed through the brush right on to the old 
bateau. 

‘'Good work,” Mr. Graham commented, and 
handed him one of the two paddles he had 
brought along. “You take the bow and limber 
up your gun. You sit in the center. Burton, and 
keep that rifle ready. Don^t shoot till I tell you, 
but when you do, don’t miss.” 

The little bateau was quite steady with an extra 
man seated in the bottom of it and the two expert 
paddlers sent it skimming through the water at 
a great rate. 

“Better get out your compass, Burton. Mur- 
phy is pretty good, but we want a double check 
on this.” 

Long before Scott thought they ought to be 
anywhere near their destination a cabin suddenly 
loomed out of the mist quite a way to the left. 
He pointed it out silently to Mr. Graham, who 
signaled to Murphy to stop paddling. Murphy 
250 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

gazed incredulously at the cabin and shook his 
head. 

‘There is some difference in paddling with two 
paddles and poling with one pole,” he whispered ; 
“but it does not seem as though that could pos- 
sibly be the place. Looks like it, though.” 

Mr. Graham thought it best to investigate and 
they started slowly toward the cabin, keeping the 
trees between them and it as much as possible. 
There was no sign of life, but it was nerve-rack- 
ing work to sneak up on the blind side of the 
cabin never knowing when some unseen marks- 
man might open fire. They stopped immediately 
back of the cabin and listened intently for a long 
time. There was no sound. Cautiously they 
pushed the bow of the boat around the corner, 
and Murphy, revolver in hand, took a peep at 
the front. The others could tell from the relax- 
ation of his body that it was the wrong place. 
They knew it long before he spoke. 

Murphy slipped his revolver back into its hol- 
ster and resumed his paddle. The front window 
was broken and the door was gone. There was 
no landing stage and the whole place looked de- 
serted. Mr. Graham had a look inside. There 

251 


SCOTT BURTON 


was nothing in it and it did not seem to have been 
occupied for years. 

“Must have been somebody else in hiding some 
years ago from the looks of this place,” Mr. Gra- 
ham remarked. “I could not imagine any one liv- 
ing out in one of these swamps unless he could 
not live anywhere else. Well, let’s make for the 
next station. I hope we have better luck there.” 

Once more they started on their silent way. 
There did not seem to be any birds in the swamp 
in the daytime. An occasional squirrel was the 
only form of life except the cottonmouth mocca- 
sins which seemed to be holding a convention of 
some kind. They were gliding about everywhere 
in the water and crawling up on to the logs to 
sun themselves. Scott had never seen so many 
poisonous snakes in so short a time. 

Murphy raised his paddle and pointed ahead 
and a little to the right. It was not very distinct 
but they finally made it out. The hazy outline of 
a cabin peeping through the maze of tall, gray 
tree trunks and long festoons of Spanish moss. 
There was no doubt about it this time. Scott 
recognized the surroundings and he also recog- 
252 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

nized a thin haze of smoke hanging about the 
cabin. There was some one in it. 

A thrill went through the whole party and they 
straightened in their seats with every nerve 
a-tingle. No one knew just exactly what was 
going to happen, but they felt sure that there 
would be something and that quickly. Mr. Gra- 
ham’s plan was to sneak up on the place from the 
rear. They could then wait in hiding till some 
one came out. If they could cover one of the 
party with a gun they might be able to force the 
surrender of the whole gang without rushing the 
cabin, which would be a very hazardous thing to 
do. There was very little chance to take advan- 
tage of any cover, and the attacking party would 
be almost completely at the mercy of the garrison 
till they could force their way inside. 

With this plan in view they sent the bateau 
slowly and cautiously forward toward the back 
of the cabin just as they had done with the other 
cabin a little while before. They ducked ner- 
vously from tree to tree like an Indian scout. 
They were within a hundred yards of the cabin 
now and no one seemed to have noticed their ap- 
proach. They were watching the cabin so in- 
253 


SCOTT BURTON 


tently that they did not think to look at anything 
else. It had not occurred to any of them that 
some of the occupants of the cabin might be out 
in boats. 

Suddenly a faint sound off to the left of them 
caught Mr. Graham’s ear and he turned with a 
start. Not very far from them and headed for 
the cabin was another bateau. For a moment 
the cabin was forgotten. They all grasped their 
guns and gave their entire attention to the boat. 
It was manned by a single negro and he was pad- 
dling leisurely. He apparently had not seen them 
and did not seem to have a care in the world. 

Mr. Graham was undecided whether to signal 
the negro and warn him away from the cabin, or 
to lie perfectly still and take a chance on his going 
on without seeing them. He reasoned that the 
people in the cabin must have seen the darky 
approaching from that direction, right in the 
path of one of the windows, and that to call him 
to them now would be inevitably to attract atten- 
tion to themselves. He decided to keep still. It 
seemed like a poor chance, but about the only one 
he had. If he had known what the arrival of 
that negro at the cabin would mean he would 

254 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

probably have risked everything to stop him, for 
it was the belated George with Qualley’s message. 

George stopped paddling every stroke or two 
to see what time it was. Not that he was in any 
hurry, far from it, but he was completely fasci- 
nated by his new gold watch. It was probably 
this infatuation which prevented him from see- 
ing the other bateau. He seemed utterly obliv- 
ious of everything around him, and with another 
long look at his precious watch he disappeared 
around the corner of the cabin without seeing 
them. They were near enough to hear distinctly 
the voices which greeted him when he arrived at 
the landing. 

Mr. Graham heaved a sigh of relief, and then 
suddenly seized his paddle with a new inspiration. 
These people would surely come out on the porch 
to see what the negro wanted, were probably out 
there now, and would be so taken up with him 
that it might be the best possible opportunity to 
catch them unaware. He signaled to Murphy 
and shot the bateau ahead with all his might. He 
went around the opposite end of the house from 
the one the negro had taken and ran the bateau 
close up beside the end of the landing stage. 

255 


SCOTT BURTON 


The whole party was there in a group on the 
porch, five men and three women. They arrived 
just in time to hear Roberts swear viciously and 
angrily crumple up a piece of paper in his hand. 
The negro was the first to see them and it was 
the sight of his astonished gaze which caught the 
attention of the others. The surprise was so com- 
plete that for the fraction of a second they stared 
open-mouthed and motionless. 

‘‘Hands up Mr. Graham commanded sharply. 
“I have a warrant here for the whole bunch of 
you.” 

Roberts saw that he was covered, caught in the 
open without his gun and taken completely at a 
disadvantage, but he was desperate. He was no 
coward and he knew that capture meant the peni- 
tentiary for him. With a roar of rage he ducked 
back of the women. The other men followed his 
example instantly, and they all crowded toward 
the cabin door, keeping the women between them 
and those threatening guns. Roberts was cun- 
ning enough to know that those men would not 
run the risk of shooting a woman. 

Mr. Graham was furious to see this oppor- 
tunity slipping from him through such a cowardly 
256 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

trick, but he did not dare to risk a shot. There 
was only one thing to do now. They must get 
inside that cabin, for on the outside they would 
be at the complete mercy of the gang and they 
very well knew what that would mean. 

''Come on, fellows,’’ he shouted, and scrambled 
from the boat on to the landing stage. Scott for- 
got his rifle in his eagerness and bounded up the 
steps empty-handed close at his leader’s heels. 

The door was slammed shut, but Mr. Graham 
thrust his foot into the crack and the impact of 
his weight quickly followed by that of Scott’s 
drove it inward and scattered the confused crowd 
on the inside to all corners of the cabin. The 
roar of Murphy’s gun announced his arrival and 
a man crumpled out of the fight with a groan. 
It was quickly followed by another roar and Scott 
felt a streak of fire across his neck and the scorch 
of burning powder on his cheek. He struck out 
wildly and cut his knuckles on the muzzle of a 
pistol, but he had spoiled the second shot which 
tore some shingles from the roof, and he saw the 
pistol fly from his opponent’s hand. The next in- 
stant Roberts’ face, contorted with the fury of 
257 


SCOTT BURTON 

an angry beast, burst through the smoke in front 
of him. 

From the moment that Murphy’s gun fired the 
first shot Scott had been fighting like a man in a 
dream. The smoke and the gunfire dazed him, 
and he did not know what to do. But when that 
furious face broke through the smoke close to 
his own he came to himself. He could not under- 
stand the noise and confusion of a gun battle, but 
he had had years of training as a boxer and he 
knew exactly what to do with that snarling face. 
He landed on it with every ounce of strength he 
had in his powerful shoulders and the face went 
back into the smoke as suddenly as it had come. 

The three women were cringing in a terrified 
group on one of the bunks as far removed from 
the shooting as possible. They evidently had no 
idea of taking any part in the fight. 

Mr. Graham had grappled with one of the men 
and was writhing on the floor in the opposite 
corner of the cabin. The two remaining men had 
both gone after Murphy. One of them had 
tackled him from the rear and attempted to pin 
his arms to his side while the other was wrench- 
ing the pistol from his grasp. Scott ran to Mur- 
258 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

phy’s assistance. Just as Scott reached him the 
man succeeded in getting the pistol and aimed it 
pointblank in Murphy’s face, but he had to hesi- 
tate for a second because the other man was di- 
rectly in the line of fire. 

That second’s hesitation saved Murphy’s life. 
Before the man could fire Scott landed a smash- 
ing blow behind his ear. The man crumpled up 
without so much as pulling the trigger. The re- 
maining man let go his now useless hold on Mur- 
phy and bolted out of the door. Scott left 
Murphy to chase him and turned to see if Mr. 
Graham needed any help, but he did not. He 
had freed himself and was sitting astride the mo- 
tionless figure. He jumped up now and looked 
about him. 

“Where is Murphy?” he asked, when he recog- 
nized Scott through the coat of black powder 
with which his face was covered. 

“He just chased the last man out the door,’^ 
Scott explained. 

“Keep these fellows down while I see if h6 
needs any help.” 

But Murphy certainly did not need any help. 
He was down on his knees on the edge of the 
259 


SCOTT BURTON 


landing and was pumping the unfortunate man, 
now at least half drowned, up and down in the 
waters of the swamp. He seemed to be thor- 
oughly enjoying himself. 

The reaction was too much for them and they 
both roared with laughter. Murphy looked up 
at them and grinned. ‘Tull him out, Murphy,’' 
Mr. Graham shouted, “we may need him at the 
trial.” 

Murphy rather reluctantly pulled the man out 
of the water and laid him on the landing. Scott 
had turned from his glance out of the door just 
in time to see Roberts regain consciousness and 
make a motion to crawl toward his gun which 
was lying on the floor near him. He sprang 
forward and snatched the gun out of his reach. 
“I did not expect you to come to yet,” he said 
coolly. “Move again and I’ll fix you right.” 

“Well, I guess we have them pretty well 
rounded up,” Mr. Graham remarked. “Now 
we’ll tie them up.” He took a coil of rope from 
a nail on the wall and proceeded to tie their hands 
and feet. He tied Roberts first and then the man 
he had choked so badly. Scott leaned over to 
help him straighten out the man who had been 
260 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

Struck back of the ear and Mr. Graham had his 
first good look at him. 

‘‘Great guns, man r he exclaimed, “you are all 
over blood. Where were you hit 

Scott had been too excited to think anything 
about himself. In fact he did not realize that he 
had been hit at all, but now that his attention had 
been called to it he felt the sting of the streak 
across his neck. “It can’t amount to much,” he 
explained apologetically, “because I thought it 
was a powder burn at the time and had really for- 
gotten it till you spoke.” 

Mr. Graham insisted on having a look for him- 
self but was soon satisfied that it was only a slight 
flesh wound. “Lucky for you, though. A half- 
inch to the right would have cut your jugular.” 

The man whom Murphy had shot had received 
a glancing shot on the forehead and was only 
stunned. Murphy’s victim had swallowed a quart 
or two of swamp water and was feeling too sick 
to offer any further resistance. 

“Five desperate characters smoked out of a 
stronghold like this and tied up without any one 
being seriously hurt. That is what I call a pretty 
good morning’s work,” Mr. Graham exclaimed 
261 


SCOTT BURTON 

enthusiastically. ‘‘If those women have not 
turned them loose again/’ and he bounded into 
the cabin. 

It would have been a very easy thing for the 
women to do, for every one had forgotten all 
about them, but they had not moved. They were 
evidently too badly scared to think of resistance. 
Roberts was lying on the floor with his face turned 
to the wall in sullen resignation. 

“The next question is. How are we going to 
get them out of here? Where are your boats?” 
Murphy asked one of the women. 

She seemed afraid to answer but more afraid 
not to. “One of the men went fishing in it,” she 
answered reluctantly. 

“Oh, ho,” Mr. Graham exclaimed. “So that’s 
it. Get on guard, Murphy; he’ll probably be com- 
ing back pretty quick to see what all that shooting 
was about.” 

They carried the man in from the landing to 
get him out of sight and waited. 

“By the way,” Mr. Graham asked suddenly, 
“what has become of that nigger?” 

Every one had forgotten him and he had taken 
advantage of the opportunity to fade away. He 
262 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

was already far out of gunshot of the cabin and 
still going strong. 

They waited in silence now for the absent man 
to return. They did not have long to wait. He 
had heard the firing and hurried back to see what 
all the rumpus was about. He had stopped at a 
distance and watched the cabin for a long time 
and not noticing anything suspicious he paddled 
on to the landing. When his boat touched the 
dock Murphy stepped out and covered him with 
his revolver. He was too surprised to resist and 
came out of the boat without a word with his 
hands high over his head. He was soon tied 
up with the rest of the bunch. 

The fisherman’s boat was a good-sized scow 
and they had no trouble in loading all the prison- 
ers on it. They tied their own bateau on behind 
and all three went to poling. 

“Too bad we can’t make them do the work,” 
Murphy growled, “but I would be willing to pole 
a scow a long way for the sake of landing this 
bunch,” and the others agreed with him. 


CHAPTER XXV 


W HEN they landed, the prisoners’ feet 
were untied and they were marched 
off toward the nearest railroad sta- 
tion. The women, who had, of course, not been 
tied up with the others, were given their choice 
of going home or of going on with the men. They 
chose to stick by their husbands. It was a queer- 
looking procession winding through the old pine 
woods. The prisoners were all sullen and there 
was not very much conversation. 

Mr. Graham attempted to be sociable. ‘Well, 
Roberts, you certainly had us buffaloed for a 
long time, but we have caught up with you at 
last.” 

“Yes,” Roberts snarled contemptuously, “and 
if you had not stumbled on to that old chain out 
there in the swamp you would never have caught 
up with us. It was all Qualley’s carelessness.” 
“Qualley’s ?” Mr. Graham exclaimed in feigned 
264 


SCOTT BURTON 


surprise. ‘‘Why, he said that he did not know 
anything about this business.” 

That was too much for Roberts. He raved 
like a crazy man and cursed Qualley in all the vile 
terms he could think of as the leader of the whole 
gang and the man who had persuaded him to go 
into it against his will. Suddenly he happened to 
think that he might say something to incriminate 
himself and shut up like a clam. No further at- 
tempts to get a rise out of him had any effect. 

They waited beside the railroad track out in the 
woods because they wanted to avoid the curious 
crowd which they knew would be embarrassing 
for both them and the prisoners if they went to 
the station. When the train finally came they 
flagged it and arrived at the county seat without 
seeing more than a dozen people. They turned 
the prisoners over to the sheriff, who happened to 
have come down to meet the train, and went on to 
Okalatchee. 

Mr. Graham had to go back to headquarters to 
write up his report on the case. Murphy was 
going home to take the good news to his wife, 
and Scott decided to go with him. There was one 
point in this mystery which had not been solved : 
265 


SCOTT BURTON 


they had not discovered how the logs were taken 
out of the pond. Mr. Graham tried to persuade 
Scott to come back to camp and have his wound 
dressed and get a little rest, but he promised to 
get Murphy to dress the wound, which he declared 
was nothing more than a scratch, and thought 
that he could rest better after he had cleared up 
the last point in the puzzle. 

‘‘Did you hear what Roberts said about stumb- 
ling on to that chain in the swamp ?’" Scott asked, 
when they were started on the home trail. 

Murphy nodded. “That was what we heard 
all right, but we never had the luck to stumble on 
to it.’’ 

“As soon as you have told the news to your 
wife we’ll get out there and have a real look for 
it.” 

Mrs. Murphy was as glad as any of them that 
the thieves had been caught. “Now,” she ex- 
claimed, “maybe Pat will stay home a little of the 
time. He has been living at that log pond a good 
part of the time for the past two years.” 

“Yes,” Murphy grinned, “and we are going 
back there again as soon as I fix up this fellow’s 
366 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

throat, which Roberts came so near slitting for 
him.” 

When Scott had a look at himself in the glass 
he could easily understand why Mrs. Murphy 
had been so horrified at the first sight of him. 
The powder from Roberts’ pistol had blackened 
all one side of his face till he looked like a half- 
minstrel, and the flesh wound in his neck, which 
was really a very shallow one, had bled so pro- 
fusely that his shirt was all stained up. 

‘‘Could not look much worse if I had really 
been murdered,” he laughed, “but that scratch is 
almost healed up now.” 

“That is because you were so close to the gun 
that the heat fairly cauterized it, but we’ll have 
to wash it out just the same and put some anti- 
septic dressing on it. These gunshot wounds are 
very apt to cause trouble. Seems as though blood 
poisoning follows them mighty easy.” 

Murphy soon applied a simple dressing and 
they set off for the old log pond, which had now 
acquired a new interest. The men, who had al- 
ready heard of Qualley’s arrest, plied them with 
curious questions, but they put them ofiF by say- 

267 


SCOTT BURTON 


ing that they had orders not to say anything 
about it. 

‘The wooziest thing about this,” Murphy ex- 
plained, as they walked slowly around the log 
pond, “is that some logs actually went out of 
here one night while I was here watching them.” 

“Were you alone that night, or was Qualley 
with you ?” 

“Qualley was there, too, but he was right in 
sight all the time.” 

“Did he stay right there with you ?” 

“Let me see. No, he did not stay right there 
in the brush all the time. As I remember it he 
went out on the logs once or twice and monkeyed 
around there when he thought he heard some- 
thing suspicious, but, as I said, he was right in 
sight all the time. Of course I did not suspect 
him then and did not watch him as close as I 
would now.” 

“Don't remember where he went in the pond, 
do you ?” 

“Yes, I remember that, because he always went 
in the same direction, always over there toward 
the east side of the pond.” 

268 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


‘‘Then I guess that is where we had better 
look first.” 

On that side the log pond was separated from 
the swamp by only a very narrow neck of land 
which was densely covered with brush. They 
made their way along this neck, fully expecting 
to find a narrow channel through which the logs 
had been floated, but there was no such passage 
there. 

“I have a hunch,” Murphy said as he cut a 
long pole and made his way back to a point where 
the neck was not more than three feet wide. 
There he poked into the bank just below the sur- 
face of the water with his pole and struck a hole 
at almost the first jab. With a shout of triumph 
he gave the pole a shove into the hole and turned 
around to look behind him. There was a slight 
commotion in the waters of the swamp and the 
pole shot up to the surface some feet from the 
shore. 

“But how did they get the logs down through 
there ?” Scott asked. 

“Just like this. I may break my neck trying to 
ride these logs without my calks, but if I don’t, 
watch.” 


269 


SCOTT BURTON 


He cut another pole and jumped nimbly on to 
a log near the edge of the pond. He poled it to- 
ward the shore, headed directly toward the tun- 
nel. When the front end of the log was about to 
touch the bank he jumped to that end, ran toward 
the other end and jumped quickly to another log. 
His weight on the front end had caused the log 
to dip down to the opening and his running along 
it had given it an impulse which sent it sliding 
through the tunnel just as the stick had done and 
it floated free in the open swamp. 

‘^Same way we used to duck them out of the 
sorting boom,’’ Murphy explained. ‘Tsn’t that 
a slick trick, though?” 

It seemed little short of marvelous to Scott, who 
had never acquired the knack of running logs, but 
he could not stop to enthuse over it now. The 
next thing to find out was what they did with 
them in the swamp. 

They got a bateau from the camp and paddled 
around to the place in the swamp where the log 
was floating. ‘‘Right out beyond here some- 
where,” Scott cried, “ought to be that chain which 
we are supposed to have stumbled over.” 

They paddled slowly on into the swamp, scan- 
270 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 

ning every tree eagerly. They had not covered 
more than two hundred yards when Murphy fin- 
ished the sentence which Scott had begun. ‘'And 
there she is.’^ 

They paddled swiftly over to the furrowed and 
swollen butt of an old cypress. Hanging from a 
spike about a foot and a half above the water 
was a heavy logging chain. “So you are the 
guilty party/' Scott exclaimed, as he looked curi- 
ously at the chain. “The next question is, What 
did they do with you ?" 

Murphy grabbed the chain and began to pull 
on it. There was no give at first. Then some- 
thing on the end of it which seemed to be some- 
where under the spreading roots of the tree be- 
gan to swing slowly to one side. 

“Feels like an alligator from the way it is 
swinging around in there," Murphy exclaimed, 
as he redoubled his efforts on the chain. Before 
he could make any further remarks the thing 
suddenly shot out from under the tree and almost 
dumped them out of the bateau. It was a heavy, 
tublike boat which had been caught on one of the 
roots of the tree, and in it were all the tools and 
materials needed to build a section of a log raft. 
271 


SCOTT BURTON 
\ 

‘‘So that is the way they worked it,” Scott ex- 
claimed. “Now I see the whole thing. They shot 
their logs out of the pond there at night the way 
you did a few minutes ago. Then the next day 
they collected them over here and made them up 
into rafts. Then when they started for the mill 
with a log raft they hauled one of these sections, 
or maybe sometimes two or three of them, out 
of one of those lower openings in the river bank 
and hooked it on to their raft. No one would 
be likely to notice just how many sections they 
had. Then when they came to their canal down 
below there they took that section off and no one 
was any the wiser. Well, it was pretty slick and 
it worked.” 

“And now I think I’ll go back to camp. I did 
not know how tired I was till now, that it is all 
over and cleared up, I feel like going to sleep 
here in the bottom of this boat.” 

“Come on over to my place,” Murphy said, 
“and ril lend you a horse.” 

So it was that Mr. Graham a little later recog- 
nized Murphy’s horse walking slowly toward his 
barn with Scott asleep in the saddle. 


272 


CHAPTER XXVI 

I T was late in the morning when Scott finally 
awoke. He glanced at Mr. Graham’s bed. 
It was empty. He listened for quite a while, 
but there was not a sound in the house. When 
he glanced at his watch he understood why it was. 
On the table he found a characteristic note from 
Mr. Graham. '‘Sleep your head off if you want 
to and catch up. I’ll be back this evening.” 

Scott felt as though he had earned a rest and 
when he had washed the breakfast dishes he 
stretched out in a steamer-chair on the little front 
porch for a good loaf. 

The waves were lapping soothingly on the 
beach, the line of islands still shimmered in the 
sunshine on the opposite side of the lagoon, and a 
little oyster schooner glided lazily across the pic- 
ture. It was almost the identical picture at which 
Scott had looked with impatient eyes just nine 
days before. Just nine days! That was all it 

273 


SCOTT BURTON 


was and yet how much had happened since then 
and how different everything looked now. 

Then he had been a stranger in a strange land, 
very much at sea, and wondering what he had to 
do. Now it seemed as though he was an old in- 
habitant thoroughly familiar with the country 
and the ways of the people. And yet how very 
little he had really seen. Most of his time had 
been spent in the swamp and there were hundreds 
of things outside he wanted to know about. 
Probably the Washington office would get Mr. 
Graham’s report in another day or two and would 
wire him to return at once to his station in the 
Southwest. He wanted to go back there event- 
ually, but he did wish that they would give him a 
few weeks longer there in the South to look about 
him. 

All afternoon he just sat there on the porch 
and dreamed. 

About supper time Mr. Graham returned in a 
high good humor. He shouted to Scott merrily 
as he rode into the yard and strode up the little 
oyster-shell walk with buoyant step. 

‘Well, Burton,” he exclaimed, clapping Scott 
on the knee with friendly hand, “Fve just done 
274 


AND THE TIMBER THIEVES 


something which pleases me mightily, but it may 
not be such good news to you. Maybe you have 
had enough of the sunny South and are longing 
to be back in the clear atmosphere of your Ari- 
zona desert, but I wanted to see a little more of 
you and I have been exchanging telegrams with 
Washington most of the afternoon. Finally per- 
suaded them that it was absolutely necessary for 
you to stay right here with me till the trial was 
over and those scoundrels were tight in the pen 
where they will surely go. What do you think 
of it?” 

Scott jumped from his chair and grasped Mr. 
Graham’s hand, his face beaming with happiness. 
‘‘The very thing I have been wishing for all after- 
noon. It seemed a shame to come away down 
here for such a short time and have to go back 
again without seeing much of the country out- 
side of the swamps, but I did not suppose it could 
be managed. You have certainly been kind 
to me and I appreciate it.” 

“Kind, fiddlesticks,” Mr. Graham exclaimed 
brusquely. “You’ve gotten me out of a tangle 
with which I have been vainly struggling for over 
275 


SCOTT BURTON 

two years, and I have only just begun to pay you 
back/’ 

And so it was that Scott spent three very pleas- 
ant months in the little cabin with Mr. Graham 
and learned how gentle, how courteous, and how 
thoughtful a really big man could be without in 
any way detracting from his strength. It was a 
lesson he never forgot and it stood him in good 
stead in the future. 

Before he left he had the satisfaction of seeing 
the whole gang of thieves on their way to the 
penitentiary under a fifteen-year sentence and 
had received a personal letter of thanks from the 
chief forester of the United States. 






i 


c 


I 






1 


] 






'll 






I 



I • 



I 


I 


RECENT BOOKS FOR BOYS 


THE BOY SCOUTS YEAR BOOK 

Edited by FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS 

The biggest book for boys! Contains stories by favorite 
authors, articles by experts, messages from famous men on all 
subjects nearest a boy’s heart. 


SCOTT BURTON ON THE RANGE 

By E. G. CHENEY 

A tale of the western forests, full of exciting happenings and 
much real woodcraft. 

THE RING-NECKED GRIZZLY 

By WARREN H. MILLER 

A big game hunter reveals the mysteries of the trail in this 
story of two boys’ visit to the Rockies. 

DICK ARNOLD OF RARITAN COLLEGE 

By EARL REED SILVERS 

A splendid football story, by a man who knows the game and 
who shows college life as it really is. 


DICK ARNOLD PLAYS THE GAME 

By EARL REED SILVERS^ 

Dick Arnold shows his metal in basketball. Another college 
story that knows what it is talking about. 

THE SILVER PRINCE 

By EDWARD LEONARD 

The old Wild West is the scene of Terry’s thrilling struggle 
to keep possession of his dead father’s silver mine. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 


T678 


BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER 


The Young Trailers Series 

Two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and three scouts are the chief characters in 
these books dealing with frontier life and adventures with the Indians about the time 
of the RevoltUionary War, Each story is complete in itself, full of excitement, and 
historically accurate. 

The Youi^ Trailers 

Two boys and their families arrive in Kentucky and build a 
settlement. The settlers begin to have trouble with the Indians. 

The Forest Runners 

The two boys set out to carry powder from one settlement to 
another. The Indians get word of it. 

The Eyes of the Woods 

The Indians at length determine to destroy the boys and their 
friends. In the struggle the boys call into play all their lore of the 
woods. 

The Keepers of the Trail 

In this book the boys and their comrades defeat a great Indian 
army and save Kentucky from invasion. 

The Free Rangers 

Five of the settlers journey down the Mississippi to urge the 
Spanish Governor-General not to join the Indians in fighting. 

The Riflemen of the Ohio 

The band of five settlers act as scouts for a great fleet coming up 
the Mississippi with supplies for the Revolutionists at Pittsburg. 

The Scouts of the Valley 

The two boys go into Pennsylvania to help the settlers there fight 
the Iroquois. They are active in several battles. 

The Border Watch 

Learning that another expedition against the settlers in Kentucky 
is being prepared, the boys join the famous fighters* under George 
Rogers C^rk. 

These Are Appleton Books 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York 


6o8A 


BOOKS BY EVERETT T. TOMLINSON 


Young People’s History of the American 
Revolution 

No one knows Revolutionary history better than Dr. 
Tomlinson. This history is unique, for in it he empha- 
sizes the part played by the citizens during the Revo- 
lution. Illustrated. 

Places Young Americans Want to 

KNOW 

In this book Dr. Tomlinson has presented thrilling de- 
scriptions of the most notable places in the history of 
our country. 

Fighters Young Americans Want to 

KNOW 

A set of little known yet thrilling stories of boys who 
never became famous but did their bit manfully and 
passed on. The stories are all true. 

The Story of General Pershing 

This is the first authentic account of General Pershing’s 
career. 

The Mysterious Rifleman 

A story of the revolution that makes exciting reading. 
A brave, high-hearted hero figures in the vivid scenes. 

The Pursuit of the Apache chief 

A thrilling tale of adventure, fighting and pursuit. 
How two young men battle with an Apache tribe among 
the Arizona canyons. 

Scouting on the border 

A story of U. S. Army life on the borderland of 
Mexico, abounding in excitement, gun-play and heroism. 

The Trail of the mohawk Chief 

Here the white man is on the trail of Joseph Brant, 
that famous Mohawk chieftain. It is a splendid tale of 
our ancestors and the men they fought. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 


T709 



t 

» 





* > • 

; . / 

4 t 







t 



» 


\ 


- < 


I 





I 




< I 




I 


I 



# 



I 



f 



li 


t 


i 


/ 


I 


I 


f 

>• 


i 


i 

4 


( I 



I 



« 


I 


t 



4 


« I 


t 


4 


. # 


r 


'■ V, 

■f • /. 






. 


f 


r 

n 


I1 

i 

M 

‘I 

I 

t 

I 

i 












